Lawyers back protesters, urge PM to order probe on police crackdown
| Photo Credit: ANI
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) and several Delhi lawyers condemned the police action against students during Monday’s (July 20, 2026) protest called by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), describing it as an “assault” on constitutional values and calling for accountability.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 use of excessive and disproportionate force against peaceful students and members of the Bar is deeply disturbing and unacceptable in a democratic society,” the resolution said. It urged the authorities to identify those responsible, initiate action in accordance with law, ensure medical assistance to those 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 sought a judicial inquiry into the police action as well as the alleged irregularities in national-level examinations.“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,” Mr. Singh wrote, urging the government to order time-bound investigations into both the issues.In another statement, signed by over 650 members of the Bar, including senior advocates Indira Jaising, Raju Ramachandran, Chander Uday Singh, Sanjay Hegde, Huzefa Ahmadi, Rebecca M. John and Gopal Subramanium, the lawyers expressed solidarity with the students and called for accountability for any unlawful use of force.“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. While the State is empowered to maintain public order, every restriction on these freedoms must satisfy the constitutional requirements of legality, necessity and proportionality,” the statement said.Lawyers providing pro bono legal aid to students detained since Monday (July 20, 2026) alleged that the police had neither shared copies of the FIRs nor disclosed the identities and whereabouts of those detained, delaying legal assistance.Raghavi Shukla, a Delhi-based lawyer assisting detained students, told The Hindu that she and other lawyers had secured the release of around 90 students from five police stations since Monday evening (July 20, 2026).“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,” she said.The lawyers alleged that they had been made to wait for hours outside police stations and had been 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. Published - July 22, 2026 11:52 pm IST
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