Roads should not be blocked for protests: Supreme Court

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New Delhi: Hearing a plea on the inconvenience caused by the ongoing farmers’ protest, the Supreme Court on Friday (April 9) said that public roads should not be blocked.

A bench comprising Justices SK Kaul and Hemant Gupta said that “we are not concerned about how you deal with the protests, but public roads should not be blocked.”

The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the government of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh asking why the roads are closed for so long.

The court was hearing a plea filed by a Noida resident named Monica Agarwal who sought that the passage between Noida and Delhi should not be obstructed.

Agarwal has claimed that her travel to Delhi was taking two hours instead of the usual 20 minutes.

The bench said that in previous judgments the court had made it clear that roads should not be blocked.

The court further said that the issue of farm laws would be decided judicially, politically or administratively but the public should be subjected to inconvenience.

"We are not concerned how you (government) resolve this issue, whether politically, administratively or legally. But we have said this before, roads should not be blocked. It cannot create continuing inconvenience," ANI quoted the bench as saying.

“This is a single mother who has to face so many issues because of these blocked roads,” the Bench added.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on April 19.