The Supreme Court sharply questioned a Greater Noida Executive Magistrate’s notice requiring a student to furnish a ₹5 lakh peace bond over the CJP protests, days after it quashed the FIRs and barred coercive action.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply questioned a notice issued by an Executive Magistrate in Greater Noida to a university student in connection with the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) student protests, with Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asking “how could a Magistrate dare to issue such a notice” when the Court had quashed the FIRs against the protesting students and expressly barred any coercive action against them a notice that, on the petitioner’s submission, prima facie raises a question of contempt [mentioning in Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and Others].
A Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana was told of the notice through an oral mentioning, and indicated that it would seek an explanation from the authority concerned, asking the petitioner to place the notice on record through a proper petition. The observations recorded below were made orally; the question of whether the notice amounts to contempt remains to be examined.
‘How could a Magistrate dare to issue such a notice?’
The matter was mentioned by Senior Advocate Bishwajit Bhattacharyya, who submitted that despite the Court’s recent order showing leniency towards the protesting students, a second-year student had been served a notice by the Executive Magistrate, Greater Noida, reportedly on the basis of Noida Police inputs. The notice, he said, had been “about to be executed” before being withdrawn, as later reported in the press. He urged that the students could not be made the subject of “an experiment,” and that the action prima facie amounted to contempt, submitting that “authorities cannot create a fear psychosis among students after this Court’s clear protection.”
The Chief Justice reacted with evident disapproval, emphasising that the Court’s earlier order had left no room for any such step:
“How could a Magistrate dare to issue such a notice? We had made it clear that no coercive action was to be taken against any student. No Magistrate could act contrary to that order.”
The remark goes to the authority of the Supreme Court’s own directions: having only days earlier invoked Article 142 to quash the protest FIRs nationwide and to bar future coercive action against students over the CJP protests, the Court was confronted with an instance of a subordinate authority appearing to act in the opposite direction.
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‘Contempt cannot be purged’
A significant exchange followed on whether anything survived for the Court to act upon, given that the notice had reportedly been withdrawn. Justice Bagchi put the question directly, asking whether there was any communication confirming the withdrawal and what cause of action remained if the notice was no longer operative.
Bhattacharyya’s response framed the issue as one going beyond the individual student to the authority of the Court itself:
“Contempt cannot be purged. It is contempt of the majesty of this Court. This is the highest court of the country.”
The submission raises a point of some legal interest that the withdrawal of an offending action does not necessarily erase the contempt already committed, since the wrong lies in having defied the Court’s order in the first place, not merely in the continuing effect of the notice. Whether the Court ultimately takes that view is a separate question; for the present, the Chief Justice indicated that the Court would call upon the District Magistrate to explain the basis of the notice, and directed that the notice be brought on record through a petition so that the Court could examine it.
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The notice and its stated basis
According to the details on record, the notice was issued by the Court of the Executive Magistrate III, Greater Noida, against Akshat Tripathi, a second-year student of Gautam Buddha University, under Sections 126 and 135 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), with the show-cause order issued under Section 130. Dated September 4, 2026, the notice followed a police report alleging that the student was “spreading and instigating anti-government misleading talks” among university students and encouraging them to join a proposed dharna by the CJP, and that his alleged activities had created tension with a possibility of a breach of peace.
The Executive Magistrate, recording satisfaction with the police report, directed the student to show cause as to why he should not be required to execute a personal bond of ₹5 lakh, along with two sureties of ₹5 lakh each, to keep the peace. The provisions invoked Sections 126 and 135 of the BNSS are the successors to the old preventive provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure empowering an Executive Magistrate to require a person likely to breach the peace to furnish a bond for good behaviour. It is the deployment of that preventive machinery against a student, in the specific context of the CJP protests over which the Supreme Court had already extended protection, that drew the Court’s objection.
Why the episode matters
The mentioning is a telling early test of whether the Supreme Court’s landmark protection for the student protesters is being honoured on the ground. The Court’s September order was framed in deliberately wide terms quashing the FIRs across five States and any similar FIR nationwide, and barring coercive action against students who had participated in the protests precisely so that individual protesters would not continue to face proceedings arising from the agitation. A preventive notice issued days later, requiring a student to furnish a substantial peace bond over alleged campaigning for a protest, sits uneasily with both the letter and the spirit of that order, which is why the Court treated the matter with the seriousness it did.
At the same time, the Court has, at this stage, only sought an explanation rather than initiated contempt: the CJI directed that the notice be placed on record and that the District Magistrate be asked to account for it, leaving open both whether the notice in fact breached the Court’s order and whether, given its reported withdrawal, any contempt action will follow. The episode nonetheless signals that the Court intends to police compliance with its protection actively, and that authorities acting against students over the CJP protests may be called upon to justify themselves before the Bench. The matter is expected to be taken up once the notice is formally placed on record.
For the Petitioner (mentioning): Bishwajit Bhattacharyya, Sr. Adv.
