The Delhi High Court agreed to hear on July 24 a PIL seeking an NIA probe into the Cockroach Janta Party protests and the July 20 march to Parliament.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday agreed to take up a public interest litigation seeking an investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests and the march to Parliament held on July 20, listing the matter for hearing on Friday, July 24 [Satish Kumar Aggarwal v. Union of India and Others].
The plea was mentioned for urgent listing before a Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia.
Advocate Barun Kumar Sinha, appearing for the petitioner, pressed for the matter to be taken up at the earliest, telling the Court that the agitation had brought the capital to a standstill and that residents were suffering on account of blocked roads.
Describing the demonstration in dismissive terms, he submitted that “it concerned the so-called student agitation, which has made entire Delhi hostage.”
The Bench thereafter agreed to list the petition for Friday.
Earlier, A public interest litigation has been filed before the Delhi High Court seeking a court-monitored investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march held on July 20 over the alleged NEET paper leak, with the petitioner contending that the demonstration was not a student protest at all but an organised episode of violence backed by political actors and foreign funding.
The petition has been filed by Satish Kumar Aggarwal, a former Vice-President of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, through advocates Sneh Vardhan and Pratibha Sinha. The respondents arrayed in the plea include the Union of India, the NIA, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Commissioner of Delhi Police and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
Aggarwal has sought directions to the NIA, or to another specialised agency, to investigate the protest, to take over all the first information reports registered by the Delhi Police in connection with the incident, and to identify and prosecute those allegedly responsible for violence, vandalism and the obstruction of emergency services.
Background: the protest and the march
The agitation traces to June 2026, when the Cockroach Janta Party a youth-led collective began a sustained protest at Jantar Mantar in the national capital, joined by student organisations including the Students’ Federation of India, the All India Students’ Association and the All India Students’ Federation.
Their central demand has been accountability for the alleged leak of the 2026 NEET question paper and the controversy surrounding the CBSE’s on-screen marking, coupled with a call for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The protest gathered considerably greater momentum in late June, when climate activist Sonam Wangchuk arrived at Jantar Mantar and commenced an indefinite hunger strike, drawing larger crowds and wider political attention. That momentum culminated in the call for a march to Parliament.
Additionally, On July 20, students and other protesters attempted to march from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament, and the Delhi Police erected barricades and imposed restrictions to prevent the march from proceeding beyond the designated protest site. The confrontation that followed with allegations of a lathi charge, tear gas and detentions on one side, and a denial by the Delhi Police of any excessive force on the other has since generated the competing rounds of litigation now before the High Court.
The NEET paper leak controversy
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is the single national gateway to undergraduate medical admissions in India, taken each year by lakhs of aspirants, which is what lends any allegation of a compromised paper its extraordinary charge.
The current agitation is not the first time the examination has been engulfed in controversy. The 2024 edition of NEET-UG triggered a nationwide storm after allegations of a question paper leak, prompting a CBI investigation and a batch of petitions before the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the examination and a fresh test.
The Supreme Court eventually declined to order a re-test for the entire cohort, holding that the material before it did not establish a systemic breach of the examination’s integrity, even as investigators pursued localised instances of leakage. That episode left behind a durable public anxiety about the security of the examination process the reservoir of sentiment on which the present protests have drawn.
The allegations concerning the 2026 examination, which the protesting students and organisations have raised, are the immediate trigger for the ongoing agitation.