SCBA President Vikas Singh has urged the Prime Minister and Union Home Ministry to order a judicial inquiry into alleged police excesses during the ‘Chalo Sansad’ protest. He alleged peaceful advocates, students, women, and minors were assaulted, demanding action against responsible police officers.
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has passed a resolution condemning the police lathi charge on students and members of the legal fraternity during the ongoing ‘Chalo Sansad’ agitation, even as its President, Senior Advocate Dr. Vikas Singh, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah pressing for a judicial enquiry into the police action at Jantar Mantar and Sansad Marg.
By a resolution dated July 22, 2026, the association recorded its condemnation of the force used against demonstrating students and lawyers, several of whom are said to have sustained serious injuries.
The body took the position that resort to excessive and disproportionate force against peaceful students and members of the Bar was disturbing and had no place in a democratic society.
The SCBA has called upon the authorities to institute an immediate, impartial and time-bound inquiry, to fix responsibility on those who used excessive force, and to proceed against them in accordance with law. It has additionally urged that adequate medical treatment be extended to all those injured, and that steps be taken to ensure such an episode is not repeated.
The association expressed solidarity with the injured and reaffirmed its commitment to constitutional rights, human dignity and the rule of law.
In his communication to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, Dr. Singh framed the events as a twofold failure of policing on the streets, and of the State in conducting national examinations fairly.
He contended that both strike at the foundations of constitutional democracy, and that the demonstrations, which sought accountability for the NEET-UG paper leaks and raised concerns over employment, had been met with an unprovoked and excessive use of force.
The letter sets out a series of allegations, each of which Dr. Singh attributes to independent news reporting, ground documentation and video material. Broadly, these fall into several categories.
On the scale of injuries, the letter cites a media account placing the number of injured protesters at over a hundred, with several taken to Ram Manohar Lohia and Lady Hardinge Hospitals and four said to have been admitted to intensive care. It alleges that students were struck directly on the head with lathis, including while bleeding or standing peacefully holding copies of the Constitution.
On the conduct of the force, the letter alleges that plain-clothed individuals carrying lathis took part in assaulting demonstrators alongside the police without displaying badges or authorisation, that male officers lathi-charged women protesters and minors including a sixteen-year-old and that a number of uniformed personnel operated without the mandatory name plates.
On the treatment of journalists, it alleges that credentialed media personnel and independent video journalists were tear-gassed, physically shoved, threatened and prevented from recording the events. Dr. Singh linked this to India’s placement at 157th of 180 countries in the RSF 2026 World Press Freedom Index, arguing that intimidation of the press erodes democratic oversight under Article 19(1)(a).
On crowd control, the letter alleges sustained tear-gas shelling near the Central Secretariat metro station and against stationary hunger-striking students, producing stampede-like conditions, along with the dismantling of the protest stage at Jantar Mantar, the clearing of non-violent hunger strikers and the detention of organisers.
Among the gravest assertions in the letter are those concerning medical personnel. Dr. Singh alleges, on the basis of eyewitness accounts and footage, that doctors and healthcare workers administering first aid who were neither protesting nor raising slogans were themselves attacked, and that officers struck injured persons lying on the ground. These are serious and, at present, untested allegations, and no authority has returned any finding on them.
The letter also disputes the official account of injuries to police personnel. Dr. Singh submits that while figures of between 50 and 118 injured officers have circulated, there is no verifiable material substantiating them, and contends that such injuries as occurred arose from stampedes, tactical mismanagement and disorderly forward charges by the police themselves. He further notes that advocates supporting the students were assaulted, among them the son of Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde, himself a practising lawyer and an SCBA member.
The letter grounds these objections in statute and constitutional doctrine. It invokes Section 148 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which governs the dispersal of unlawful assemblies by civil force and bars force as a first resort, alongside Section 149(3), which codifies the rule of minimum force. Dr. Singh contends that the police action also transgressed the Delhi Police Manual, under which a lathi charge, when lawfully ordered, must be directed strictly below the waist and officers on public-order duty must wear visible identification.
Constitutionally, the letter asserts violations of Article 21, in its aspect of bodily integrity, and Article 19(1)(b), which protects peaceful assembly, adding that the Supreme Court has consistently held that police force must be minimal and preventive rather than punitive.
A substantial portion of the letter is devoted to what Dr. Singh describes as a systemic collapse in the sanctity of public examinations, which he says infringes the guarantee of equal opportunity under Article 14 and the right to livelihood under Article 21.
He points to a pattern of breaches stretching from 2017 to the present, spanning the AIIMS MBBS examination, SSC recruitment tests, CBSE board papers, JEE Mains, the Army entrance examination, NEET-UG in both 2024 and 2026, UGC NET and CSIR, and a railway recruitment examination alongside State-level leaks affecting teacher eligibility and police constable recruitment in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and further breaches in Gujarat, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Maharashtra.
Dr. Singh argues that the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, in force since June that year, has not stemmed the problem, attributing this to gaps in the statute the absence of time-bound investigation or trial, of a standardised investigative procedure, of scrutiny of repeat offenders and money trails, and of provisions for confiscation of property.
He characterises measures such as the recent blanket restriction on certain digital communication platforms as an admission of administrative helplessness rather than a remedy.
Setting out the human cost, the letter refers to aspirants who have crossed the upper age limit owing to delays, to families who have mortgaged or sold assets to fund a child’s preparation, and to the rise in student suicides linked to academic pressure and repeated disruption of competitive examinations.
Dr. Singh has urged the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to act on four counts. First, the constitution of a time-bound judicial commission under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, headed by a sitting or retired judge of the Supreme Court, to examine the police action, investigate paper-leak networks and determine institutional liability. Second, the immediate suspension of the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, to enable an impartial enquiry.
Third, the registration of FIRs under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 against field officers and other personnel alleged to have breached statutory procedure and police manuals. And fourth, the fixing of administrative accountability on the Ministry of Education for lapses in safeguarding the security of national competitive examinations.
Framing the appeal, Dr. Singh wrote that “the strength of a constitutional democracy is measured by “its commitment to accountability and the Rule of Law.”
The Delhi Police have, in respect of the events of July 20, denied allegations of excessive force. The correspondence follows a batch of public interest litigations already before the Delhi High Court on the same police action, in which a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia has issued notice to the Centre and the Delhi Police, directed the preservation of CCTV footage and videography, and listed the matter for hearing in September.
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.