India, Nov. 3 -- Delhi Police commissioner Anurag Kumar on Tuesday defended the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site, telling the Supreme Court that the decision was based on a Union home ministry committee's unanimous recommendation and a changed security and public-order situation. He stressed that the right to protest cannot translate into a right to demonstrate at a particular location.

In a counter-affidavit, filed in response to a petition by advocate Swaty Singh, the police chief said that the right to protest at a particular site was not an absolute right, especially when doing so could affect the rights of non-protesting citizens to earn their livelihood, undertake business and other activities peacefully...