CJI Says Arbitrary Action by Police on Delhi Protesters to be Examined

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant stated, in response to a petition filed by Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, leader John Brittas over reported arbitrary actions by Delhi Police during protests, that the issues the lawmaker flagged will be considered by the court​. The court also said separately that it will examine whether there had been application of mind in de-notifying Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site and in notifying three alternative venues. On October 15, the court considered several petitions about the Delhi protests, including ​police c​rackdown on young women and mistreatment by the forces and others by ​opposition I.N.D​.I.A. bloc leaders.

In an intervention application tagged to ongoing proceedings concerning restrictions imposed on protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities​ in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI​), Brittas, leader of the CPM in the Rajya Sabha, who represented himself in court on October 15, thanked the CJI for his observation. Ahead of the proceedings, he had hoped for a favourable statement ​from the Supreme Court.

Brittas said in court that he was delighted that the CJI converted his letter to him into an intervention application. He also said he was roughed up while speaking to the media.

“While examining the issue, the factual issues you have pointed out are bound to be considered,” the CJI said in response to Brittas’s petition. The Supreme Court office had registered Brittas’s letter as Interlocutory Application No. 319609/2026 and tagged it with ongoing writ proceedings concerning restrictions on public demonstrations in New Delhi.

Brittas, along with several other protesters in the national capital from across non-BJP parties, journalists and lawyers, has been roughed up by the forces over the past several days.

Brittas had told Open on October 11 that he was detained that day by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel who dragged him away from the midst of journalists in Delhi’s Connaught Place, where he was speaking to them about the latest Supreme Court order on the ongoing protests.

“I was taken away and then several CRPF men (who can easily be identified from videos) started pressing me against my seat, causing massive suffocation. They continued doing that until I was at a point of total breathlessness. It was then that I got a call from DCP Sachin (Sharma), who apparently saw the video of my arrest somewhere,” said Brittas, who is also a member of the CPI(M) Central Committee.

Earlier, on October 6, several lawmakers of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc had alleged that the Delhi Police played a neat ruse to hurt them physically without being seen as directly charging at them with batons, by cleverly shoving them from behind using clenched fists and by nudging them forcefully with elbows shortly after they were stopped from marching from Parliament to the Election Commission headquarters (Nirvachan Sadan), located next to Patel Chowk on Ashoka Road.

John Brittas, AA Rahim, V Sivadasan and P Sandosh Kumar said that they were physically assaulted with elbows and fists by the forces from behind, apart from being dragged along the road by their hands while they were lying on their backs after they were stopped from proceeding with their march near the barricades on Parliament Street.

Lutyens Delhi was fortified ahead of this march even as youth protests continued, demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation. Several students were reportedly beaten up without provocation, as claimed by leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and leftist student leaders who are at the forefront of the protests, seen as a sequel to the one that rocked the national capital a few months earlier and led to the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Central Delhi has seen a massive deployment of forces since the CJP called for a protest demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, notwithstanding directions issued by the Supreme Court in a special sitting on October 11, when a bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said that there shall be no illegal detention of peaceful and unarmed people, particularly beyond the area where Section 163 BNSS prohibitory orders were in operation.

The Opposition and the agitating youth, led by the CJP and leftist student organisations such as SFI, AISF, AISA and others, were met with force for trying to organise protests; many of them were reportedly carried away in vans, detained and beaten up.