Yogendra Yadav’s detention violation of fundamental rights: Prashant Bhushan tells HC

Senior Supreme Court lawyer and Swaraj Abhiyan co-founder Prashant Bhushan on Tuesday approached the Delhi High Court against the ‘illegal detention’ of around 90 people late last night by the Delhi Police.
Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav as well as several volunteers were allegedly manhandled by the police and detained for refusing to end their protest at Jantar Mantar.
Bhushan’s colleague and senior counsel Kamini Jaiswal told a bench of Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva that the fundamental rights of people were violated.
“Prashant Bhushan as their lawyer was not allowed to meet them. No FIR was filed and people have been in custody since last night,” Jaiswal said.
A Habeas Corpus plea, a legal action by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment, was filed in the High Court seeking the release of those detained and an inquiry against police personnel who made the arrest. The plea alleges that the police station was locked from the inside and lawyers were not allowed to meet the detainees.
This morning, Yadav and the volunteers were released by the police but they refused to leave the police premises protesting against the police brutality and questioning the need for the Delhi Police to resort to such violence in the middle of the night.
“Is standing peacefully with a Hal an offence? We were not obstructing traffic, were willing to cooperate with any reasonable condition,” Yadav had tweeted.
Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh arrived in the capital on Sunday in 150 tractors as part of the ‘Jai Kisan Andolan’. But the police initially did not allow the farmers to enter the capital. The police said tractors were not allowed on the roads of the capital, said Anupam Singh, spokesperson, Swaraj Abhiyan.