Around 450 NALSAR students wrote to the administration opposing CJI Surya Kant as convocation chief guest, citing his remarks on the student protests and police action.
Hyderabad: A section of the graduating students at the NALSAR University of Law has written to the university administration opposing any proposal to invite Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as the chief guest at the institution’s forthcoming convocation, citing his remarks and conduct in the recent proceedings concerning the police action against student protesters in Delhi.
The representation, sent by email on July 23 and endorsed by around 70 students of the 2026 batch — including members of the Students’ Bar Council — was addressed to the Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar and members of the faculty, and urged the university to reconsider the choice of chief guest.
The students’ objection
The students framed their concern as one specific to their graduating batch, rooted in the values they say a convocation is meant to reflect. In their letter, they wrote:
“As students of law, our concern is narrower and more specific to us as a graduating batch. A convocation is meant to be a moment where the University’s own values, including a commitment to constitutional rights, access to justice, and reasoned engagement with grievances, are visibly reflected in the choices it makes.”
Explaining why the proposed invitation sat uneasily with them, they added:
“We feel that receiving our degrees from a dignitary whose recent public conduct, as reported, appears dismissive of serious allegations of police brutality against protesting citizens sits uncomfortably with what we have been taught to value during our time at NALSAR.”
A second letter, circulated among students, went further in naming the specific remarks that had prompted the objection:
“From referring to the youth as ‘cockroaches’ to making insensitive statements about not having time to watch videos of police brutality, the CJI has shown apathy towards students like us. Inviting him to our college to hand us degrees that hold so much academic and emotional importance does not sit right with us.”
The students contended that inviting the Chief Justice in the present circumstances would be inconsistent with the values of constitutional accountability and academic freedom, and said the issue was one shared across graduating cohorts.
The proceedings that prompted the letter
The objection is anchored in two developments from the Supreme Court’s handling of the student agitation.
The first is the July 22 mentioning, when advocate Narendra Mishra raised the alleged police excesses during the ‘Chalo Sansad’ march to Parliament on July 20. The CJI-led Bench declined an urgent listing, and when counsel offered to place video material of the alleged police action on record, the Chief Justice observed that the Court did not have the time to watch videos — a remark the students cited as reflecting a dismissiveness towards the allegations. The Court subsequently clarified that no petition had, in fact, been formally filed at that stage, and that what had been placed before it was a letter.
The second is the “cockroach” remark of May 15, made during the hearing of a matter the Bench treated as frivolous, in which the Chief Justice likened certain persons in the legal field to cockroaches. The remark was widely interpreted as a reference to unemployed youth and gave the Cockroach Janta Party — the collective that led the Jantar Mantar agitation — both its name and its rallying point. The Chief Justice has since clarified, more than once, that the remark was directed only at those who enter the legal profession on fake and unrecognised degrees, and not at the youth, for whom he said he holds respect.
The university’s position
As of the students’ representation, the university had neither announced the date of the convocation nor officially confirmed the Chief Justice’s presence. By convention, the sitting Chief Justice of India is invited as the chief guest at NALSAR’s convocation, and past ceremonies have drawn the highest constitutional dignitaries — the President of India attended the 2024 convocation, and the then Chief Justice addressed the 2025 event.
Context
The episode is a striking one: a cohort of final-year students at one of the country’s premier law schools publicly questioning whether the head of the judiciary should confer their degrees. It reflects the extent to which the Supreme Court’s response to the July protests has resonated within the legal-education community itself, and it sits alongside the wider institutional reaction from the Bar — the resolutions of the Supreme Court Bar Association and other bodies, and the Preamble recitations by advocates — that followed the July 20 police action.
At the same time, the students’ letter rests expressly on conduct “as reported” and on remarks the Chief Justice has publicly clarified, and it is a representation seeking reconsideration rather than any formal proceeding. The university is yet to respond to it, and no decision on the convocation or its chief guest has been announced.
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