The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a petition challenging the Delhi Police crackdown on the Cockroach Janta Party protest last week. A batch of petitions was mentioned before Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday. He scheduled the matter for hearing on Tuesday.
The court didn’t wait for the full hearing to make its position clear. “Right to peaceful, lawful protest [is] absolutely guaranteed under the Constitution,” it observed while agreeing to take up the matter.
The bench drew a sharp line between agitation and the force used against it. “So long as it is peaceful agitation, merely because there is agitation, there can’t be [lathi charge]… if there are excesses committed, it should be independently examined,” the court said.
The CJI made clear the court’s concern wasn’t limited to what happened in Delhi. He said the issue extended beyond a single city or a single protest.
A call for uniform protocol
Beyond the specifics of the CJP crackdown, the court flagged a broader gap: the lack of consistency in how protests are policed across different states. What was needed, it said, was uniformity in protocol nationwide. This is important since “discipline [is] integral to [the] democratic process.”
That framing suggests the court may be looking at this case as an opportunity to lay down standards. These standards could apply well beyond the Jantar Mantar protest itself.
With the matter listed for hearing on Tuesday, the court’s early observations already set a clear tone. Any use of force will need to be independently examined rather than justified simply because a protest was underway. Moreover, how the Centre and Delhi Police respond when the case is taken up, and whether the court moves toward the kind of uniform national protocol it has flagged, will be the things to watch when the hearing resumes.
Curated news reports, in-depth analysis, and special features by India’s Opinion editorial team.
