PoliticsCourts
CJP's Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka withdraw High Court plea, pin hopes on magistrate
Justice Subramonium Prasad told the two Cockroach Janta Party leaders their remedy lay in revision and suggested they wait for the afternoon hearing on their sureties.
Key points
- Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka withdrew their Delhi High Court petition against their extended custody.
- Justice Subramonium Prasad said their remedy lay in revision, not a writ.
- They were due before the special executive magistrate at 2 pm as their custody ran out.
The two jailed Cockroach Janta Party leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, withdrew their Delhi High Court challenge to their extended judicial custody on Wednesday after the judge suggested they would do better to wait for the magistrate’s hearing that afternoon.
Justice Subramonium Prasad questioned why they had come to the High Court at all. “If it is a revisable order why come in Article 226?” he asked. “Your remedy actually lies in revision.” He cautioned their counsel that “you are drawing the court into a debate which might ultimately not go in your favour”, and pointed out that the special executive magistrate was due to look again at their sureties at 2 pm.
“Would it not be better for you to withdraw this, see what happens at 2 PM,” the judge said. “Suppose things happen today in your favour at 4 PM, all gone.”
Their advocate, Abhik Chimni, had argued that the magistrate’s order of 19 October was flawed at its root because the court had no power to extend their custody, and that it had wrongly recorded the position on sureties. “The order says no other surety is present,” he told the court. After a short break he chose to withdraw. The judge allowed it and said he was expressing no view on the merits.
The pair have been held since 13 October, when they climbed the gate of Jantar Mantar a day after it was struck off the list of protest sites. On Monday Special Executive Magistrate Ritu Raj refused their sureties and extended their custody to Wednesday, saying their conduct “shows no respect for law”. The result of Wednesday afternoon’s hearing had not been made public by about 3:45 pm.
The same judge also agreed to hear urgently a plea by AISA president Neha Bora against a police notice asking her to show why she should not sign a ₹10,000 bond “for keeping peace”. She was detained on 16 October on her way to the party’s “Lehra Do Tiranga” march and released the next day.
“Saurav and Ashutosh should not spend a single minute behind bars,” CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh wrote on X on Tuesday.