Supreme Court to view video of Ramlila ground swoop; relief for P Chidambaram

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday decided to view the video footage of Delhi Police crackdown on yoga guru Ramdev and his followers, saying it should be ensured that such incidents do not recur even as it declined to make Union Home Minister P Chidambaram a party to the case at this stage.

A bench of justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar decided to watch the two-hour video recording of the entire incident on August 5 at 4.15 PM.

Turning down Ramdev's plea to implead Chidambaram, who had defended the Delhi Police action, the bench said it is not expanding the ambit of the case and the focus is to examine the circumstances which led to the June 4 incident.

The bench said it is not making the Home Minister a party to have his say in the case at this stage but will keep the issue open.

Expressing concern over the incident, the bench said, "Innocent persons should not be beaten up by whosoever.

"We must ensure that such incidents do not occur again," the bench said.