Chief Justice of India Surya Kant remarked that the Supreme Court would intervene if the metro station near the court remained closed by afternoon, after the SCBA highlighted the inconvenience caused to lawyers, litigants, and court staff.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the Supreme Court would step in if the metro station serving the court was not reopened by the afternoon, after the Supreme Court Bar Association drew his attention to the hardship the closure was causing lawyers and court staff.
The exchange took place before a Bench of the Chief Justice and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana.
SCBA President, Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, raised the difficulties arising from the shutting of the Supreme Court metro station, submitting that advocates and registry personnel travelling by the metro could simply be screened at the station rather than being denied access altogether, and that the closure was taking a toll on the working of the court.
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Pressing the point, he suggested that intervention on the judicial side might become necessary.
Responding, the Chief Justice said,
“If by lunch time something does not happen to open it, I will intervene.”
He assured the Bar that the matter would be looked into if the station remained shut past the lunch hour.
The Chief Justice also disclosed that instructions had been issued to judges of the Court not to pass adverse orders that day where counsel were unable to appear on account of the protests and the attendant difficulties in reaching the court.
In substance, no litigant is to suffer an adverse order for non-appearance in circumstances where the disruption, rather than any default, has kept their lawyer away.
Background: why the metro stations are shut
The closures stem from the ongoing student agitation in central Delhi. Since June 2026, the Cockroach Janta Party, a youth-led collective, has led a sustained protest at Jantar Mantar over the alleged leak of examination question papers, principally the 2026 NEET-UG paper, coupled with a demand for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The protest gathered pace after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk joined it and began an indefinite hunger strike.
Matters escalated on July 20, when the collective attempted a march from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament. A heavy police deployment and barricading were put in place to stop the march from advancing beyond the designated protest site, and access to several metro stations in the vicinity was restricted, with station gates shut as a precautionary measure leaving commuters stranded across central Delhi.
Such closures follow a well-established practice. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation routinely shuts the entry and exit gates of specified stations on the advice of the Delhi Police during protests, marches and VIP movements in the capital, the object being to prevent large numbers of demonstrators from converging on a sensitive area by rail.
Stations in the Lutyens’ zone clustered around Parliament, the Secretariat and the courts are the ones most frequently affected, which is precisely why the Supreme Court’s own station has been caught in the shutdown.
With the agitation continuing this week, several stations in central Delhi have remained closed, and it is that continuing restriction which prompted the Bar’s request and the Chief Justice’s assurance from the Bench.
The Delhi High Court is seized of a batch of public interest litigations alleging excessive use of force by the police against students during the July 20 march, in which a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia has issued notice and directed the preservation of CCTV footage and videography. The same Bench has separately agreed to hear, on July 24, a PIL seeking an investigation by the National Investigation Agency into the protests. The Delhi Police have denied allegations of excessive force.
The SCBA has meanwhile passed a resolution condemning the police action, with Singh writing to the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister to seek a judicial enquiry.