Manoj Tiwari said he had broken the seal of a building as a "symbolic protest". (File)
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserve its order on contempt proceedings against Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari for allegedly breaking the seal of an illegal building.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Mr Tiwari claimed that the monitoring committee wanted "to terrorise the people of Delhi" by carrying out sealing drive in unauthorised colonies that were actually protected under the law.
The top court had on September 19 issued contempt notice against Mr Tiwari. On October 12 the court asked him to place on record, the no objection certificate (NOC) from his erstwhile counsel.
During the hearing, Mr Tiwari's counsel had said that the premises in Gokalpuri should not have been sealed by the authorities.
In his reply filed in the court earlier, Mr Tiwari had said that he had broken the seal of the premises as a "symbolic protest" against the illegal action of officials of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and was willing to accept the role of 'sealing officer' as suggested by the top court.
Mr Tiwari, a lawmaker from the north-east Delhi constituency, had said that he had not "disobeyed" any orders of the top court.
He had claimed that the EDMC had dragged the monitoring committee in the matter with a sole intention to gather "media glare and publicise" the whole issue.
Mr Tiwari said that on September 16, he came to know about the sealing of an alleged "illegal dairy", and when he inquired from EDMC officials about it, they were not ready to offer any satisfactory explanation.
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