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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

HC denies shield to anti-CEC protesters

Court says it will intervene if specific illegalities are brought to its notice Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to pass blanket orders against police detentions of people protesting against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, while assuring that it would take action if specific illegalities are brought before it. The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Sagar Devre, who alleged that Mumbai police illegally detained hundreds of peaceful demonstrators,...

HC denies shield to anti-CEC protesters

Court says it will intervene if specific illegalities are brought to its notice Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to pass blanket orders against police detentions of people protesting against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, while assuring that it would take action if specific illegalities are brought before it. The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Sagar Devre, who alleged that Mumbai police illegally detained hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, including women and students, who took out marches in solidarity with agitations in the national capital over the weekend. Advocate Manish Tomar, representing the petitioner, urged the court to issue an interim order restraining the police from making further detentions during peaceful demonstrations. A division bench, however, declined the plea for a general stay on police action.
Court’s Assurance "We cannot pass a blanket order saying no person shall be detained. You point out if there is any such instance, we will take care. We will not permit anything wrong," the court observed. Additional Government Pleader Manish Upadhye sought time to seek instructions from the concerned authorities on the claims made in the petition. Accepting the request, the high court adjourned the matter and posted the plea for further hearing on October 19. Devre's plea sought protection of the fundamental rights of citizens, peaceful demonstrators, lawyers and others in connection with the protests in the national capital against the CEC. Terming it as an issue involving the fundamental right of people, the PIL said it was filed to protect a simple freedom of every Mumbai resident citizens – to walk freely on the city roads, to stand peacefully with others, or to stay in one’s home “without being lifted and carried away” by the police without an individual reason. It mentioned how students were allegedly picked up from their homes in connection with protest cases dating back to July 2026, which the petition said had already been quashed by the Supreme Court. Making it clear that the challenge was not against the police’s legal authority to regulate public assemblies or the political positions taken by protesters, the petitioner claimed it was to question the practice of detaining people without individualised, lawful and recorded reasons, or using previously quashed cases and past detentions against them. Invoking Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law, the plea argued that coercive action based merely on a person's association, appearance on a list, previous detention or presence in a public place would amount to arbitrary state action. It further contended that a quashed FIR could not be used as a continuing basis for hostile discriminatory treatment as a ‘permanent mark’ against a citizen since "a quashed FIR is no FIR at all”. The PIL seeks the court's declaration as 'unconstitutional' the sweeping detention of peaceful demonstrators, pedestrians and others without lawful individual justification. It seeks an independent inquiry into the alleged police excesses, preservation of CCTV footage, police records, a verified list of the detenus and framing of standard operating procedures to govern policing action during mass-protests. Long detentions The petitioner contended that the detentions went beyond the demonstrators to include bystanders and passers-by, among them women, a mother with a child and a senior citizen. Among those detained included Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson Tushar Arun Gandhi, his daughter Kasturi, actor Imran Khan, activists Feroze Mithiborwala, S. L. Guddi, scores of youth and students, though they were released after several hours of detention by various police stations.

Growing Against the Grain

Quaid Najmi
13 hours ago
2 min read

Part - 4

Name: Priya Salvi

Where: Done, Thane district

As Maharashtra’s villages face mounting pressure from chemical-intensive farming, water shortages, and rapid conversion of agricultural land to other uses, one woman farmer in Done (in Thane) is transforming her five-acre ancestral property into a working model of sustainable living.

 

For Mumbai-based Priya Salvi, 56, the answer to the growing environmental crisis lies in returning to nature’s systems. On her farm, bananas, mangoes, cashews and guavas thrive without synthetic chemicals, while fallen leaves, crop residue and pruned branches are recycled into manure and mulch.

 

Armed with a Master’s degree in Horticulture from the Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Salvi’s journey to farming was unusual. She spent years tackling Mumbai’s daunting waste-management challenges before ‘retiring’ to a rural setup around 2008, to implement her ideas about sustainability into practice on the chunk of land owned by her family Done in Thane district.


Today, the ‘Salvi Farm’ is regarded as an experiment in biodiversity, soil conservation, water harvesting and need-based living, besides providing food.

 

Though far away from urban comforts, Salvi describes herself as a prosperous, happy and satisfied person in her tiny lush green paradise where she pursues her passion for farming minus any chemical inputs.


“A lot of chemicals are used in modern agriculture which are causing environmental degradation and affecting human health,” Salvi tells The Perfect Voice. So far, she has directly or indirectly inspired and trained over 3000 farmers, including many women.

 

After her graduation, Salvi joined the ‘Save Bombay Committee’ to promote solid waste management, and within four years the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took her on board as a consultant on waste management.


Perturbed by the utter lack of civic sense among both authorities and citizens, she launched awareness camps, introduced vermi-processing, helped develop the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) concept to create a functional network involving citizens and the civic body, earning global attention.

 

Yet, despite years of work on waste management and agriculture, Salvi felt cut-off from Mother Nature – a feeling that eventually led her to take up full time farming. In the last 17 years, Salvi has run her family farm virtually solo, earning the respect of the villagers, the farming community, and the society at large.


Her agro-philosophy is returning to the soil what comes from it, be it fallen leaves, crop straw, pruned branches and other biomass, by converting them into mulch or manure through vermi-processing and other natural processes.

She adheres to optimum tillage – scraping only the upper layer of soil instead of repeatedly turning it over – for utilizing its natural potential rather than forcing it to produce through chemical inputs.


  “Sustainable farming must go with sustainable living… Once you live in a sustainable way, your needs are reduced and are met by farming,” she points out.

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