Legal Bodies Demand Inquiry into Police Action Against Student Protesters
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA), and over 650 Delhi lawyers have condemned the police action during a student protest on July 20, 2026, calling for an independent probe into the incident. The protest, organized by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), saw students and some lawyers injured in what the legal bodies described as excessive use of force.
The SCBA adopted a resolution seeking an immediate, impartial, and time-bound inquiry into the police action, stating that several students and members of the legal fraternity were injured. The resolution said, "The use of excessive and disproportionate force against peaceful students and members of the Bar is deeply disturbing and unacceptable in a democratic society." It urged authorities to identify those responsible, ensure medical assistance to the injured, and take steps to prevent such incidents.
In a separate letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, SCBA President Vikas Singh requested a judicial inquiry into the police action as well as alleged irregularities in national-level examinations. Singh wrote, "I address this representation with profound concern over a dual administrative collapse that strikes at the core of our constitutional democracy: the unlawful and disproportionate police violence inflicted upon peaceful student assemblies, and the failure of state machinery in conducting various national examinations fairly."
A statement signed by over 650 lawyers, including senior advocates Indira Jaising, Raju Ramachandran, Chander Uday Singh, Sanjay Hegde, Huzefa Ahmadi, Rebecca M. John, and Gopal Subramanium, expressed solidarity with the students and called for accountability for any unlawful use of force. The statement emphasized that "in a constitutional democracy, peaceful dissent is not an act of defiance but an exercise of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution."
Lawyers providing pro bono legal aid to detained students reported difficulties in accessing information. Raghavi Shukla, a Delhi-based lawyer, told The Hindu that she and colleagues had secured the release of around 90 students from five police stations since Monday evening. She said, “We have been visiting Janpath, Parliament Street, Mandir Marg and other police stations. The biggest challenge is that the police are not sharing the names of detainees or allowing lawyers to meet them. The flow of information has been so restricted that one detainee lodged at Chhatrasal police station could be released only after two days because we persisted.”
Lawyers alleged they were made to wait for hours outside police stations and denied access to FIRs, medical records, and other documents. Another lawyer, Charu Sinha, who has been providing legal assistance along with advocates Anuka Bachawat and Sneha Mandal, alleged that detainees were being shifted between police stations, making it difficult to trace them. “We found some students picked up from Jantar Mantar at Burari police station. It has become a difficult task to locate those detained,” she said.
