NEW DELHI: Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) on Monday approached the Supreme Court and alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition at the Centre harbour a pathological animus to the ideas of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, while challenging a High Court order asking it to vacate its premises in the National Capital.
AJL filed the appeal against the Delhi High Court order dismissing its plea to restrain the Centre from taking any coercive steps to vacate its premises at Herald House, situated in the ITO area.
The plea also urged the apex court to set aside the Centre’s October 30, 2018 order ending its 56-year-old lease and asking it to vacate the premises. The high court had on February 28 dismissed the plea of AJL challenging the Centre’s order to vacate its premises.
“This court may be pleased to take judicial notice that the principal political party of the incumbent ruling coalition dispensation at the Centre viz the BJP (in its present form since 1980 and in its earlier avatar — the Bharatiya Jana Sangh since 1951) harbours a pathological animus to the ideas of Indian’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, whom they incessantly accuse of creation of a secular democratic republic ...” the plea said.
Terming the eviction proceedings before the HC as biased and malafide, the AJL said its publication espouses the ideology of the Congress.“The eviction proceedings have been initiated for the purposes of scuttling the voice of democratic dissent of the Congress Party. It is a clear affront to the freedom of speech and expression... and a deliberate attempt to suppress and destroy the legacy of the first Prime Minister of the country i.e. Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the guiding light for the publications of the petitioner-company,” the plea stated adding that the present dispensation has never hidden its pathological hatred for Nehruvian ideals.