Today the Bombay High Court dismissed a PIL filed by four law students from Mumbai challenging Maharashtra government's notification declaring a holiday on January 22. Of course, PILs are filed regularly and most of them are also dismissed at admission stage. But what makes this case different, is that the bench came down heavily on the petitioner law students. The court said that the law students were publicity and politically motivated and the petition shook the court's conscience. These are very strong words which will have a bearing on the future prospects of these law students.

Now, after the proceedings completed, RW started naming and shaming the law students on twitter. They are being called jihadis and all sorts of names. So far Gautam Bhatia (NLS) and Ashish Goel (NUJS) have tweeted in support of these law students. Why are LW alumni from reputed National Law Schools silent and not speaking up? Is it too risky to speak about this openly? These are the links to the tweets:

https://twitter.com/gautambhatia88/status/1749124370436591687

https://twitter.com/ashish_nujs/status/1749128154457985370

Go to court when the court can help you else it's a publicity stunt. Tomorrow someone from BJP will file a petition in the SC asking them to cancel holidays on Eid/Christmas, will the SC sit and listen to such petitions?

The bombay HC did the right thing by berating them. If they were not students then costs would have been imposed.

I can argue that it's a religious event as well. The issue is not about whether holiday should be observed or not, the issue is who has the power to declare holidays? Its the govt. The current govt can very well come up and say that 22nd Jan will be observed as a national holiday from next year on. The courts can't do much about it tbh. It is for the people to elect the right govt. This much discretion should be left with an elected govt.