Even as the High-Powered Committee begins its fact-finding, the Supreme Court was reminded that the weightier constitutional questions from the student protests, the legality of pellet guns and of police data-collection through private companies, must be decided by the Court itself, since a fact-finding body cannot rule on constitutional validity.
New Delhi: As the Supreme Court settled the working of the High-Powered Committee (HPEC) examining alleged police excesses against student protesters, counsel pressed that a set of constitutional questions arising from the protests, including whether pellet guns should be used at all and whether the police’s collection of protesters’ data through private companies is lawful, lie outside the Committee’s remit and must be decided by the Court itself [Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and Others].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana heard the matter. While the Committee undertakes the factual inquiry into the policing of the July protests, the hearing brought into focus the distinct constitutional strand that the Court has, from the outset, reserved to itself.
‘A fact-finding committee cannot decide constitutional validity’
Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy submitted that apart from the factual inquiry by the Committee, there were constitutional questions already identified by the Court, one of which, arising in Writ Petition 917 of 2026, was whether pellet guns should be used at all. Advocate Vrinda Grover was emphatic that these could not be delegated to the Committee:
“The constitutional questions are outside the Committee’s remit. A fact-finding committee cannot decide constitutional validity. Those issues must be examined by this Court.”
The distinction is a fundamental one. A committee of the kind constituted here, following a procedure broadly akin to the Commissions of Inquiry Act, gathers facts and forms an opinion to assist the Court; it cannot pronounce on the vires of a practice or on the scope of a fundamental right. Questions such as whether the deployment of pellet guns against protesters is constitutionally permissible, or what limits the right to privacy and the freedom of assembly place on the policing of protests, are for the constitutional court alone. The Court’s earlier orders had themselves flagged that the broader constitutional issues would be decided by it in due course, and this hearing saw that boundary reasserted.
Data collection through private companies
A second constitutional strand concerned surveillance. Guruswamy raised a separate petition concerning the Delhi Police’s use of private companies, vehicles and equipment to collect and store data relating to protesters, submitting that there appeared to be no clear statutory framework governing how such data is collected, stored, accessed or handled by private entities. Counsel noted that the same issue arose in another connected matter, and suggested that the respondents file a common counter-affidavit, since the point concerned the legality of the entire data-collection process and could be examined independently.
The concern goes to the heart of informational privacy: the outsourcing of data collection about citizens exercising their right to protest to private companies, absent a governing legal framework, raises questions about accountability, retention and misuse that a fact-finding inquiry into police conduct on a particular day cannot resolve. The Chief Justice noted that the Court’s earlier order already gave parties liberty to place any material, documents, evidence or suggestions before the Committee, and permitted anonymous complaints so that identities could be protected; Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the State, said a counter-affidavit would be filed.
The interim compensation question
A further issue concerned relief for those already injured. Grover pointed to an interlocutory application seeking interim compensation, noting that on an earlier date the Solicitor General had said he would look into it, but that nothing had been heard from the State authorities, and that those affected needed interim compensation at this stage. When the Chief Justice observed that the issue was also within the remit of the Committee, Grover responded that the compensation question was not presently before the Committee, keeping the point alive as one for the Court’s own consideration.
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Why the distinction matters
The hearing underscores a division of labour that will shape how the entire student-protest litigation unfolds: the Committee finds facts, the Court decides the law. That separation is not a technicality. Whether pellet guns may lawfully be used for crowd control, and whether the State may outsource the surveillance of protesters to private entities without a statutory framework, are questions that touch the rights to life, to privacy and to peaceful assembly, and their answers will bind well beyond the July protests. By keeping these strands for itself, the Court signals that the most consequential legacy of this litigation may lie not in the findings on any particular incident but in the constitutional standards it lays down for the policing of protest.
The interim compensation issue illustrates the same theme from the side of remedy. A fact-finding committee can recommend, but the grant of interim compensation to those injured, before any final determination of liability, is an exercise of the constitutional court’s own jurisdiction to do complete justice. As the factual inquiry proceeds before the Committee, these constitutional and remedial questions will run on a parallel track before the Bench, and it is on that track that the durable law from these protests is likely to be made. When the Court takes up the pellet-gun, surveillance and compensation questions on their merits will determine the pace of that second, and arguably more important, half of the case.
Case Title: Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Union of India and Others (and connected matters, including W.P. (C) 917 of 2026)
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana
Date of Hearing: September 10, 2026