The Delhi High Court declined to urgently hear a plea alleging excessive police force against CJP protesters, with CJ Upadhyaya remarking, “Don’t drag the court into all this.”
The Delhi High Court declined to be drawn into the fallout of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests in the national capital, urging litigants against turning to the Court over matters arising from the agitation, as it responded to a request to urgently list a petition alleging that the Delhi Police had used excessive force against demonstrators.
The remark came from Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya when a lawyer sought an urgent listing of a plea concerning the police action against protesters on Monday.
Declining the mentioning, the Chief Justice, sitting with Justice Tejas Karia, observed,
“Don’t drag the court into all this.”
The petition had been moved in the wake of Monday’s events, when the CJP’s planned march towards Parliament was stopped by the police. It alleges that the force deployed against the demonstrators was excessive and disproportionate.
According to reports, the police resorted to a lathi charge and the use of tear gas as the protesters attempted to proceed, leaving several of them injured. The Delhi Police have, in turn, disputed the allegations of excessive force.
The matter remains a developing one, with the plea yet to be taken up on merits.
Background: what the CJP protest is about
The Cockroach Janta Party is an online satirical collective that has, over recent weeks, spearheaded a sustained protest at Jantar Mantar and other parts of central Delhi.
Students drawn from across the country, along with the collective’s activists, have rallied around a central demand accountability for a series of examination paper leaks, and the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The agitation, which began in June 2026, gathered momentum after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk joined it and commenced an indefinite hunger strike at the protest site, drawing larger crowds and wider political attention to the cause. The controversy over the 2026 NEET paper leak and related grievances concerning the conduct of public examinations formed the backdrop against which the movement grew.
Matters came to a head on Monday, when the collective attempted its long-planned “Sansad Chalo” march to Parliament. A heavy police deployment blocked the route, and the confrontation that followed with allegations of a lathi charge, tear gas and detentions on one side, and a denial of any excessive force by the police on the other has since spilled into litigation.
The plea before the High Court is among the first legal challenges arising directly from that police action, even as the Court, for now, has signalled its reluctance to be pressed into the dispute at the mentioning stage.