CJP's Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka walk out of Tihar after promising to stay away from Jantar Mantar

Cockroach Janta Party leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka walked out of Tihar Jail on Wednesday evening, eight days after they climbed the locked gate of Jantar Mantar with the Tricolour. A Delhi magistrate turned down a police request to keep them inside for three more days and released them on bonds.

Special Executive Magistrate Ritu Raj, an assistant commissioner of police, ordered that each furnish a personal bond of ₹50,000 with a surety of the same amount. Both men gave written undertakings not to disturb public peace and not to call for protests at Jantar Mantar for as long as the site remains de-notified as a protest venue. Any future demonstrations, they promised, would stay within the constitutional framework.

The magistrate held that the bonds and the written assurances were enough to keep the peace and that further custody was not needed. They must appear, with their sureties, at every hearing. The next one is on Friday, 23 October, at 3 pm, when the investigating officer must report on whether the sureties check out.

What the police wanted

Parliament Street police had brought the preventive proceedings under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. On Wednesday they asked for three more days of judicial custody, pointing to the pair’s earlier conduct, their statements to the media and what police called contradictions between what they said in public and what they told the court. “Based on their previous conduct and calling of demonstration there were some apprehensions regarding maintenance of peace,” the police told the magistrate.

Their counsel apologised in court and assured the magistrate that the conduct would not be repeated. Delhi Police have meanwhile moved a second case against the two to the Crime Branch.

Ranka had been held in Jail No. 4 and Das in Jail No. 2.

A long week in custody

The two were detained on 13 October, a day after Jantar Mantar was struck off the list of protest sites, and remanded on 14 October. On Monday the same magistrate refused their sureties and extended custody by two days, saying their conduct showed “no respect for law”.

Earlier on Wednesday they withdrew a Delhi High Court petition against that extension after Justice Subramonium Prasad suggested they wait for the magistrate. “Would it not be better for you to withdraw this, see what happens at 2 PM and then follow the course of law,” the judge had said.

Reactions

CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh welcomed the order but said it “should have come earlier”. Aam Aadmi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal said the country stood with the two leaders.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said they had been held because of an alleged breach of an earlier peace bond, not because they tried to raise the national flag. Das, Ranka and party founder Abhijeet Dipke had been released on bonds to keep the peace only days before the gate climb.

The CJP has been at the centre of protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.