A courtroom with more than a dozen senior counsel on one side and the Solicitor General on the other: Justice Joymalya Bagchi’s answer to complaints about interruptions was that every voice is valuable and everyone will be heard, whatever the numbers.
New Delhi: As the Solicitor General and counsel for the petitioners traded interjections during the Supreme Court’s hearing of the Delhi protest pleas on Thursday, Justice Joymalya Bagchi told both sides that every voice would be heard, regardless of how many lawyers stood on either side [Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Govind Mohan and connected matters].
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi sat on the Bench. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented the authorities; the petitioners were represented by more than a dozen senior counsel.
How the exchange began
Senior Advocate Indira Jaising had just made her submissions on the treatment of women journalists, saying: “In Israel and Palestine, women journalists are going and reporting. No one is stopping them, and we are stopping them here. No more FIRs against women journalists.” Mehta asked to respond and said: “Can I respond to Ms Jaising? They are creating a ruckus. They are creating disorder.”
Justice Bagchi’s reply:
“Every voice is valuable. Everyone will be heard, irrespective of the numbers.”
The Chief Justice said the Court wished to hear the Solicitor General before it passed any order: “We want to hear you also before passing an order, because Ms Indira Jaising has prayed for some interim directions. Allow us to hear you before we pass any order.”
The Solicitor General’s plea
Mehta then asked for a chance to make his case without being cut off:
“Allow me to peacefully, without raising my voice, without shouting, assist the Court the way a lawyer should assist. Whatever the Court ultimately directs will be binding upon us. But please hear us. There is another version.”
He returned to the point later in the hearing: “I have no difficulty with the Court hearing everyone, but the Court will have to control the interruptions.” Earlier, while the matters were being listed, he had asked counsel to let each other finish: “Let us not compete with each other for arguments.”
Why so many lawyers
The batch is wide. It covers contempt pleas over Metro closures and the internet shutdown, habeas petitions, challenges to Section 172 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and to the de-notification of Jantar Mantar, and petitions by journalists’ bodies. By the end of the hearing, notice had been issued in all the protest matters, and both sides were asked to appoint nodal counsel to identify overlapping issues.
The case so far
Everything began on October 9, when a Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana held that Metro and train services in Delhi could not be completely prohibited ahead of the October 10 protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, and directed that services run in a regulated manner. On October 10, Advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi filed a contempt petition alleging Metro station closures and train cancellations in breach of that order, together with complaints of mass detentions and a mobile internet shutdown.
Justices Bagchi and Mohana sat specially on Sunday, October 11. They recorded a prima facie case, issued notice to the alleged contemnors, and passed ad-interim directions that Metro and rail services function normally, that people move freely, that internet services remain undisturbed and that no one be illegally detained. They also had a Section 163 notice board near the Court removed. Habeas petitions, including one by Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, were heard with it.
The women journalists’ petitions came up on October 13, when the Chief Justice asked that a senior Delhi Police officer remain present to explain alleged assaults on women journalists covering the protests. The Network of Women in Media, represented by Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, and the Free Speech Collective, through a contempt plea, had both moved the Court, and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists filed a separate Article 32 petition alleging assault and detention of reporters.
The allegations in these petitions, and the authorities’ responses to them, are untested. Notice has been issued, and the Court has expressed no view on the merits.
Case: Batch of petitions on the October 10 Delhi protests, including Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Govind Mohan [Contempt Petition (C) Diary No. 63801/2026] and connected matters
Bench: CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi
Date of Hearing: October 15, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocates Dr A.M. Singhvi, Kapil Sibal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, N. Hariharan, C.U. Singh, Dr Menaka Guruswamy, Arundhati Katju, Nitya Ramakrishnan, Shoeb Alam, Sanjay Hegde, Indira Jaising, Mukta Gupta and Gaurav Bhatia, with Advocates Vrinda Grover and Nizam Pasha, for various petitioners; Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the authorities