CJI Surya Kant says judiciary will protect students’ right to peaceful protest

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the judiciary is committed to protecting students' fundamental right to peaceful protest and that courts will not ignore infringements. At CNLU, he also addressed questions on police action and collegium transparency

Patna: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday asserted that the judiciary is committed to “protecting” students’ fundamental right to hold peaceful protests and that courts will not look the other way when there is an infringement.

The CJI made the statement at the Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) in Patna, where he engaged in an “unfiltered interaction” with students, making it clear that he “preferred to have a frank question-and-answer session”.

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According to a CNLU statement, a girl student asked about the “police response to peaceful students’ protests”.

The allusion was to the Jantar Mantar protests in Delhi against alleged NEET exam paper leaks, spearheaded by the Cockroach Janata Party, which, incidentally, began as a satirical online campaign following a remark made by the CJI in the Supreme Court, though he later claimed that his utterances had been reported out of context.

The CJI told the questioner that “courts will not look the other way” when faced with cases of alleged brutal repression by the police and “unequivocally reaffirmed the judiciary’s commitment to protecting students’ peaceful right to protest”.

Another student sought to know “why dissenting opinions within the collegium were recorded but never made public”.

The CJI replied, “Disclosure, however well-intentioned, risks placing the individual under consideration in an untenable position”.

Noting that “transparency has its limits when personal dignity is at stake”, the CJI asked, “How can a chief justice or a judge continue to work if a negative observation about him is included in the collegium’s minutes?”

According to the CNLU statement, the CJI visited the campus along with Patna High Court Chief Justice V Kameswar Rao, who is also the Chancellor of the university.

“In the light of recent opposition to the CJI in NALSAR, Hyderabad and NLSIU, Bangalore, the event had great significance,” the CNLU statement said.

The CJI also lauded as “a new, welcome idea” a proposal by CNLU Vice Chancellor and noted jurist Faizan Mustafa “to compress the five-year law degree into four years of academic study and mandatory court apprenticeship in the final year”, which could “eliminate the separate one-year practice requirement for judicial service examinations”.