‘Then you are not Gen Z’: Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka withdraw Delhi High Court plea against custody

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) co-conveners Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka on Wednesday withdrew their petition in the Delhi High Court against a magistrate’s order extending their judicial custody. During the hearing, Justice Subramonium Prasad questioned why they had approached the High Court when other legal remedies were available, and at one point remarked that the two were not Gen Z. The court allowed the withdrawal without expressing a view on the merits of the case.

Das and Ranka were first detained at Delhi airport on October 10, ahead of planned CJP protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and released the same day after furnishing peace bonds of ₹50,000. They were detained again after they allegedly entered the barricaded Jantar Mantar site, which is no longer a designated protest venue, and were sent to judicial custody. On October 19, a special executive magistrate (SEM) extended that custody by two days, saying they had deliberately breached their bonds, and rejected the two sureties they had offered.

Referring to the leaders’ part in earlier protests that had involved students, the judge asked how old they were. When their lawyer, advocate Abhik Chimni, said Das was 27 and Ranka 31, the judge replied: “Then you are not Gen Z,” India Today reported. He went on to say that the cause had changed while the same people remained. “People remain the same, cause is changing. Correct? The next question will be who are you. What are you? What is your association what is the purpose of your association?” he said, according to Bar & Bench.

Justice Prasad also referred to the allegation that a barricade had been broken. “When you go and break a barricade, the chances of 10 or 20 more people in violation of Section 163 (BNSS) is very high,” he said, according to Bar & Bench. “You may have started with something you say is peaceful. For that purpose you take police permission which is to prevent unwanted persons who join your group and spoil your name.”

Chimni argued that the magistrate had no jurisdiction to extend custody and that the sureties had been wrongly rejected. “The order says no other surety is present. There were two sureties, but the SEM did not even call for them,” he told the court, Bar & Bench reported.

The judge suggested the two withdraw the plea and wait for the magistrate, who was due to reconsider their sureties at 2 pm on Wednesday, and then go to a revisional court if needed. “Would it not be better for you to withdraw this, see what happens at 2 PM and then follow the course of law,” he said, according to India Today. Chimni withdrew the petition on his clients’ instructions. The High Court was also due to hear AISA president Neha Bora’s separate challenge to a peace-bond notice, which The Indian Idiot reported on earlier. The result of the afternoon hearing before the magistrate had not been reported at the time of publishing.