In a judgment that may become an important reference point in India’s continuing debate over liberty and national security, a Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja ruled that the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty under Article 21 cannot be indefinitely subordinated to statutory restrictions on bail.

“The appellant’s rights under Article 21 of the Constitution of India need to be balanced and may even trump the restriction imposed under Section 43D(5) of the UAPA,” the Court observed, as per LiveLaw, while setting aside a December 2024 order of the Special NIA Court that had refused bail.

The ruling, however, does not immediately secure Parvez’s freedom. He continues to remain in custody because he is also an accused in a separate NIA case registered in 2020 relating to alleged terror-funding networks in Jammu and Kashmir, where his bail plea remains pending.

The case against Khurram Parvez

Parvez, one of Kashmir’s most internationally recognised human rights defenders, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on November 22, 2021, during an investigation into what the agency described as a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) over ground worker network allegedly operated by a Pakistan-based handler known as Hyder alias Ali alias Yusuf.

Significantly, Parvez was not named in the original FIR registered by the NIA on November 6, 2021. His name emerged during the course of the investigation.

The NIA’s case is that Parvez, while functioning as Programme Coordinator of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and Chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), was allegedly involved in terrorist conspiracy “in the guise of human rights activism.”

According to the prosecution, Parvez recruited Muneer Ahmad Kataria as an overground worker for Lashkar-e-Taiba and facilitated his introduction to Pakistani handler Hyder. Kataria allegedly recruited another accused, Arshid Ahmad Tonch, creating a chain of operatives linked to the militant organisation.

The agency further alleged that Parvez was involved in gathering sensitive information regarding Indian security installations, army camps, troop movements, road conditions near the Line of Control, and details of military and paramilitary structures. Investigators claimed that information about officers involved in counter-insurgency operations was compiled into dossiers described as “High-Ranking Perpetrators.”

The NIA also relied upon emails allegedly showing contact between Parvez and Pakistani journalists who sought footage of Indian military deployment in Kashmir.

The prosecution further pointed to Parvez’s visits to Pakistan in 2007 and 2015, where he allegedly met Syed Salahuddin, chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen and a designated terrorist. Visiting cards of Hizbul functionaries recovered from JKCCS offices were also cited as incriminating material.

Additionally, the agency alleged that Parvez played an active role during the 2016 protests that followed the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani, accusing him of making speeches including slogans such as “Burhan tere janissar, beyshumaar beyshumaar“, “Go Back India“, and “India go away from Kashmir“. According to the prosecution, these activities promoted separatist sentiment and encouraged unrest.

A separate strand of the prosecution case concerns allegations that Parvez attempted to secure the release of electronic devices seized by investigators through illegal payments routed via Muneer Ahmad Kataria to former NIA Superintendent of Police Arvind Digvijay Negi, who was later arrested in a separate corruption scandal.

The approver at the centre of the case

A critical feature of the High Court’s analysis was the centrality of Muneer Ahmad Kataria, who has since turned approver. In a supplementary chargesheet filed in July 2025, Kataria claimed that he had worked as an NIA informer since 2019 and had known Parvez since 2015. He alleged that Parvez introduced him to Hyder, described him as the “Chief Operating Commander” of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Jammu and Kashmir module, and facilitated financial and operational links.

Kataria also alleged that Parvez paid him Rs 1.5 lakh to be passed on as a bribe to NIA officer Arvind Digvijay Negi. The High Court acknowledged that these allegations were serious. However, it emphasised that they rested substantially on the testimony of a co-accused who had become an approver and who himself claimed to have been working as an NIA informer.

“While the above statement raises serious allegations against the appellant, these allegations are based on the statement of a co-accused who has since turned approver and who himself claims to be an NIA informer. His evidence is yet to be tested in trial,” the Bench observed in Para 66 of the judgment. That observation became one of the most significant aspects of the judgment.

The Defence: Human rights work, not terrorism

Parvez’s legal team, led by Senior Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir, argued that the prosecution had systematically criminalised legitimate human rights documentation. The defence pointed out that many of the documents cited by investigators—including the “Structure of Violence” report and the “Alleged Perpetrators” report—were publicly available publications that had been released years earlier and remained accessible on the JKCCS website.

The “Structure of Violence” report, published in 2015, documented military and paramilitary structures in Kashmir as part of human rights research. The “Alleged Perpetrators” report, published in 2012, compiled information about officers allegedly implicated in human rights violations, much of it obtained through Right to Information requests.

The Court noted an important fact: the prosecution did not dispute that these documents had been publicly available for years. It further recorded that the “Alleged Perpetrators” report had even been shared with the Indian Army, which publicly responded to it in 2012.

The defence also argued that Parvez’s visits to Pakistan in 2007 and 2015 were undertaken openly, with valid visas, and were part of public advocacy efforts that had long been documented in the public domain.

On the allegations relating to slogans and participation in protests, the defence argued that expressions of political dissent or advocacy of self-determination cannot automatically attract anti-terror provisions unless they cross the threshold into incitement of violence or active involvement in terrorist activity.

The constitutional question

At the heart of the case lay a broader constitutional question that has increasingly confronted Indian courts: can a person accused under UAPA be kept in prison indefinitely while waiting for trial?

Section 43D (5) of the UAPA creates one of India’s toughest bail standards. Courts are ordinarily prohibited from granting bail if the accusations appear prima facie true on the basis of the chargesheet and case diary.

The High Court devoted substantial attention to recent Supreme Court jurisprudence on this issue. The Bench revisited and relied upon the landmark decision in Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb, where the Supreme Court held that constitutional courts retain the power to grant bail when prolonged incarceration threatens fundamental rights.

Quoting extensively from Najeeb, the High Court reiterated that statutory restrictions “will melt down where there is no likelihood of trial being completed within a reasonable time and the period of incarceration already undergone has exceeded a substantial part of the prescribed sentence.” (Para 52)

The Court also examined the Supreme Court’s more recent judgment in Gulfisha Fatimav, which cautioned that delay alone cannot automatically justify bail in every UAPA case and that courts must conduct a contextual assessment that takes into account the nature of allegations, stage of proceedings, causes of delay and risks associated with release.

Yet the Bench also referred to the Supreme Court’s subsequent observations in Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, where a three-judge bench strongly reaffirmed the constitutional foundations of bail.

The Supreme Court had observed in Andrabi: “‘Bail is the rule and jail is the exception’ is not merely an empty statutory slogan. It is a constitutional principle flowing from Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution and the presumption of innocence.”

Detailed analysis of Andrabi judgment may be read here.

The High Court further noted that although the broader question regarding the relationship between Article 21 and Section 43D (5) has now been referred to a larger Bench of the Supreme Court, existing precedent continues to bind constitutional courts.

Four-and-a-half years without trial

The factor that ultimately proved decisive was the extraordinary delay in the proceedings. The Court recorded that Parvez had been incarcerated since November 22, 2021. Despite spending almost four-and-a-half years in prison, the case had not even crossed the stage of arguments on framing charges.

The prosecution proposed to examine 197 witnesses if charges were eventually framed. The Court observed that there was “no likelihood” of the trial concluding in the foreseeable future. The judges therefore considered the allegations, the stage of proceedings, the constitutional guarantee of liberty, and the reality of the judicial process together.

” We have taken note of the above allegations and the defence of the appellant, only to highlight that they must be tested against the long period of incarceration of the appellant and the fact that there is no likelihood of the trial ending soon as also against the yardstick of bail being the rule, while denial thereof being an exception. The appellant‟s rights under Article 21 of the Constitution of India need to be balanced and may even trump the restriction imposed under Section 43D(5) of the UAPA.” (Para 71)

The Court added that continued incarceration under these circumstances raised serious Article 21 concerns.

Disability as an additional ground

The Bench also gave weight to Parvez’s physical disability. Parvez lost his leg in a landmine explosion in Kupwara in 2004 while participating in election-monitoring work and has used a prosthetic limb ever since. Although the NIA argued that his disability had not prevented him from engaging in extensive travel and activism, the Court concluded that his condition nevertheless entitled him to special consideration.

“We are also to keep in mind that the appellant is infirm. Though the learned SPP has emphasised that his infirmity has not deterred the appellant from still indulging in activities, which he describes as being anti-national, the fact remains that the appellant is infirm and deserves that special consideration,” the Bench held in Para 73.

Bail granted, but under strict conditions

Having balanced the seriousness of the allegations against constitutional concerns arising from prolonged incarceration, the Court granted bail. The conditions imposed are extensive.

Parvez must furnish a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh with two sureties, surrender his passport, remain within the National Capital Territory of Delhi unless granted permission to travel, appear before the trial court whenever required, and report periodically to investigators.

He is prohibited from contacting witnesses, tampering with evidence, making public statements about the merits of the case, or engaging in activities that could prejudice the trial. Among the more notable conditions is a prohibition on uploading, sharing, disseminating or circulating any “anti-national material” through social media or other platforms. The Court also clarified that any violation of the conditions could result in cancellation of bail.

A significant UAPA bail ruling

The judgment arrives at a moment when courts across India are grappling with a growing tension between national-security legislation and constitutional guarantees of liberty. Rather than deciding whether the allegations against Parvez are true or false, the Delhi High Court repeatedly emphasised that such questions must ultimately be resolved at trial.

Its focus was narrower but constitutionally significant: whether an individual can remain imprisoned for years while a trial remains nowhere near completion.

The Court’s answer was clear.

Even in prosecutions involving terrorism allegations, constitutional courts cannot ignore prolonged incarceration. While the allegations against Parvez remain serious and continue to be contested, the Bench concluded that constitutional guarantees of liberty, speedy trial, and due process cannot become casualties of an endlessly delayed prosecution. As the Court put it, Article 21 may, in appropriate cases, “even trump” the restrictions imposed by the UAPA.

The complete judgement may be read below:

Previous reports on the cases against Khurram Parvez may be read here.

Related:

50 HR groups appeal for unconditional release of Khurram Parvez, Irfan Meraj

MEA lashes out against OHCHR comment on Khurram Parvez’s arrest

Kashmir based human rights activist Khurram Parvez arrested

Khurram Parvez is still in jail despite court’s release order due to ‘minor clerical error’

The post Article 21 May Trump UAPA Bail Bar: Delhi High Court grants bail to Kashmiri rights defender Khurram Parvez after 4½ years in jail appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The government presents the exercise as a necessary response to illegal immigration, demographic change and national security concerns. Yet mounting evidence from court proceedings, media investigations, government directives and testimonies from affected families raises a more troubling picture: one in which due process protections appear increasingly fragile, citizenship verification procedures are often opaque, and Bengali-speaking Muslims bear the overwhelming burden of suspicion.

Detailed report may be read here.

At the heart of the controversy, lies a fundamental constitutional question: can the Indian state pursue such detention and immigration enforcement while bypassing the procedural safeguards that protect individuals from arbitrary detention, wrongful deportation and statelessness? Two, without this due process of either established legal norms or procedures not enquiries/investigations into who these illegal immigrants are, is such action not arbitrary and without foundation?

The missing data and the transparency deficit

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current deportation drive is not merely the scale of the exercise but the extraordinary lack of transparency surrounding it. Across Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and other states, governments have announced deportations, detention drives and large-scale verification exercises. Yet even today, there is no publicly available dataset identifying who has been classified as an undocumented migrant, from which districts they were picked up, what evidence was relied upon, whether nationality was independently verified, how many individuals challenged those determinations, how many continue to remain in detention centres, and how many have ultimately been deported.

This absence of information is particularly striking because the consequences of these decisions are so severe. Deportation is among the most coercive powers exercised by the state. It can separate families, extinguish livelihoods, result in prolonged detention and, in some cases, leave individuals stranded in a country they insist is not their own. Yet the public is being asked to accept the legitimacy of the process without access to even the most basic information about how it is being carried out.

The opacity is all the more difficult to justify because the Union governments own deportation policy appears to contemplate extensive record keeping and reporting requirements. The policy submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs before the Supreme Court requires state governments to maintain records of individuals handed over for deportation, submit mandatory reports to the Union government, and provides that the Bureau of Immigration shall publish information relating to deported Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas on a public portal for verification purposes.

Yet little of this information is publicly accessible. Speaking to Al Jazeera, civil rights activist and CJP Secretary Teesta Setalvad argued that the present campaign appears to be driven more by political rhetoric than publicly available evidence. “Even today the authorities have not made available exactly who, which families, from which locations have been identified as illegal immigrants, on what basis and assessment and then sent back,” she said. “There is also an element of targeting specific sections, particular communities.”

Her criticism points to a fundamental problem: In the absence of publicly available data, independent scrutiny becomes nearly impossible. It is impossible to assess whether those being detained and deported are in fact undocumented migrants, whether particular communities are being disproportionately targeted, whether established procedures are being followed, or whether wrongful deportations are taking place.

The demand for transparency is therefore not a procedural technicality. It lies at the heart of democratic accountability. If governments are confident that deportations are being carried out lawfully, after proper verification and in accordance with due process, then there is a compelling public interest in releasing comprehensive data regarding those detained, those housed in holding centres, those whose nationality has been verified, and those who have ultimately been deported.

Until such information is made available, one of the most far-reaching citizenship and deportation exercises in recent Indian history will continue to operate largely beyond meaningful public scrutiny.

From political slogan to state policy

For decades, the BJP has built its political narrative in eastern India around the issue of “illegal infiltration” from Bangladesh. The party has repeatedly argued that large-scale migration has altered the demographic composition of border states, strained public resources and created security vulnerabilities.

The issue has occupied a central place in BJP campaigns in Assam, West Bengal and Tripura. Senior BJP leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have frequently described undocumented migrants from Bangladesh as a threat to national security and demographic stability. During previous election campaigns, Shah famously referred to illegal migrants as “termites“, a phrase that drew widespread criticism from civil society groups and human rights organisations. Report in The Hindu.

Following the BJP’s victory in West Bengal, these political commitments quickly evolved into administrative action. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced the implementation of a “detect, delete and deport” framework under which individuals identified as illegal migrants would be detained by state authorities and transferred directly to the Border Security Force (BSF) for deportation, as per Hindustan Times. The announcement was accompanied by instructions to establish holding centres across districts and create a streamlined mechanism for identifying and removing alleged infiltrators. What was once campaign rhetoric had become state policy.

The creation of a national deportation architecture

The developments in West Bengal are not occurring in isolation. According to documents reported by The Hindu, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has formulated a comprehensive deportation policy requiring states to establish district-level special task forces for the identification, detention and deportation of alleged illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar. However, before the Supreme Court of India, in the ongoing Rajubala Das v. Union of India case, the deportation policy submitted before the Courts hays down more tested procedures. The same has been explained below.

The policy directs states to:

• Create dedicated holding centres or camps for undocumented migrants awaiting deportation.
• Establish a time-bound mechanism for identification and nationality verification.
• Upload biometric information and demographic data onto the Foreigners Identification Portal.
• Cancel government-issued identity documents obtained by individuals determined to be illegal migrants.
• Maintain monthly reports regarding foreigners who are untraceable, detained or awaiting deportation.
• Coordinate with central agencies to facilitate removals.

The guidelines envision a nationwide infrastructure capable of processing large numbers of suspected migrants. Holding centres are to be enclosed by ten-foot boundary walls and barbed-wire fencing. Detainees are to remain confined pending verification of nationality and completion of deportation procedures.

Although the policy states that these facilities should provide humane living conditions, medical care, educational facilities for children, communication access and recreational space, rights groups argue that the rapid expansion of detention infrastructure signals a shift towards normalising large-scale administrative detention.

A policy contradiction at the heart of the deportation drive

One of the most striking aspects of the current deportation campaign is the apparent tension between the procedures explained above and the deportation framework that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs itself placed on record before the Supreme Court.

In the Rajubala Das v. Union of India proceedings before the Supreme Court, the MHA submitted an affidavit setting out a detailed deportation policy governing the treatment of alleged undocumented Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas. That policy envisages a structured process involving coordination between state governments, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs, foreign missions and designated border-guarding forces. Crucially, it recognises that nationality cannot be assumed unilaterally and that nationality verification is a necessary component of the deportation process.

The policy specifically provides that where an alleged undocumented Bangladeshi national or Rohingya is arrested, their details are to be furnished to the Ministry of External Affairs so that the matter can be taken up with the Bangladesh High Commission or the Myanmar Embassy for nationality verification. The stated purpose is to enable the foreign government concerned to process and verify the individual’s nationality before deportation is carried out.

The same policy also requires state governments to maintain records of all individuals handed over for deportation and submit mandatory monthly reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs. It further provides that the Bureau of Immigration shall publish a list of deported Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas on a public portal for verification purposes.

This raises a serious question: If the deportation policy submitted before the Supreme Court contemplates nationality verification through diplomatic channels, maintenance of detailed records, mandatory reporting and publication of deportation data, how do these safeguards square with reports of alleged pushbacks, summary removals and immediate send-backs at the border?

The question becomes even more pressing in light of report that Bangladeshi and Myanmar nationals intercepted at land or maritime borders may be “immediately sent back” after their biometrics are recorded. The apparent gap between the procedures described before the Supreme Court and practices now being reported on the ground deserves far greater public scrutiny.

Detailed report on the Rajubala case may be read here.

Holding centres become operational

The practical implementation of this framework is already underway. Malda became the first district in West Bengal to operationalise a holding centre under the new policy. The facility initially housed nine individuals identified as suspected Bangladeshi nationals, including women and children.

Officials, as per The Indian Express, described the centre as a temporary facility where detainees would remain while their nationality and immigration status were verified.

However, rights advocates point out that detention itself can become punitive when individuals are confined before citizenship disputes are conclusively resolved. This concern is especially significant in border regions where documentation is often incomplete, where migration has historically occurred across fluid borders, and where linguistic and cultural similarities between Indians and Bangladeshis complicate nationality determinations.

West Bengal

West Bengal is the epicentre of the current drive. According to Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, the state has already deported 4,800 alleged undocumented Bangladeshi migrants through newly established holding centres in border districts. Another 836 people were reportedly being held awaiting deportation as of early June 2026, as per The Times of India.

The government has also established an expanding network of detention facilities. Initial reports indicated that 11 holding centres had been created across the state and were housing at least 335 detainees, while later reports from Malda alone suggested more than 150 detainees had already been transferred there from North 24 Parganas district.

Government officials have presented these numbers as evidence of successful enforcement. However, the figures raise significant questions. If nearly 5,000 people have been removed within weeks of the BJP assuming office, it remains unclear how many cases involved completed nationality verification by Bangladesh, how many individuals received access to legal representation, and how many removals were subject to judicial scrutiny.

Gujarat

The largest publicly reported operation outside eastern India occurred in Gujarat. Under “Operation Delta Hunt”, authorities investigated approximately 6,200 individuals and identified 362 people as alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, as per The Hindu. Of these, 166 were identified in Ahmedabad alone, including women and children. Authorities also stated that investigations into hundreds of additional cases were continuing.

The Gujarat government has further indicated that it intends to prosecute employers and landlords accused of sheltering undocumented migrants.

Assam

Unlike West Bengal and Gujarat, the Assam story is not primarily reflected through new numerical announcements but through litigation. Throughout 2025 and 2026, several habeas corpus petitions before the Gauhati High Court and the Supreme Court challenged alleged “pushback” operations involving Bengali-speaking Muslims who claimed Indian citizenship. The significance of Assam lies not merely in the number of people detained but in the emergence of documented allegations that Indian citizens were wrongly identified as foreigners and transported towards the Bangladesh border.

Citizens for Justice and Peace provides legal aid in some cases, details may be read here, here and here.

The Assam cases effectively became the warning sign for what now may happen on a larger scale in West Bengal.

The May 2025 Assam crisis report may be read here.

National figures

At the national level, according to The Hindu, the Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed that India has asked Bangladesh to verify the nationality of more than 2,860 individuals whom Indian authorities believe to be Bangladeshi nationals residing illegally in India.

Simultaneously, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has directed states to establish district-level mechanisms for the identification, detention and deportation of alleged undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar, suggesting that the campaign is being institutionalised nationwide rather than remaining confined to border states.

The human cost of wrongful deportation

Few cases illustrate the dangers of inadequate verification more clearly than that of Sunali Khatun. Reported extensively by BBC News, Khatun, a Bengali-speaking Muslim woman from West Bengal, was detained in Delhi alongside her husband and young son on suspicion of being an undocumented migrant. Authorities alleged that she lacked proof of lawful residence and initiated deportation proceedings. According to her account, officials failed to properly verify her claim that she was an Indian citizen from West Bengal. She, her husband and child were subsequently transported to Bangladesh. Once there, Bangladeshi authorities treated them as illegal entrants and imprisoned them. The family spent months in detention.

Detailed report on this case may be read here.

Only after intervention by the Supreme Court was Sunali permitted to return to India on humanitarian grounds while her citizenship claims continue to be examined. Her husband remains stranded in Bangladesh.  The case exposed the potentially catastrophic consequences of administrative errors in citizenship determination. A mistaken deportation is not simply an immigration decision. It can separate families, result in imprisonment in another country and effectively strip individuals of their nationality.

Due process concerns

The central criticism of the current deportation campaign is not that states lack authority to remove foreign nationals. Every sovereign state possesses the power to regulate immigration and deport individuals who are unlawfully present. The issue instead concerns the process by which such determinations are being made.

Under established principles of administrative fairness and constitutional governance, individuals facing deportation should ordinarily have:

• Notice of the allegations against them.
• Access to documentary evidence.
• An opportunity to challenge adverse findings.
• Legal representation.
• Independent verification of nationality.
• Judicial oversight where fundamental rights are implicated.

The recent practices, however, often fall short of these standards. Reports from Assam and West Bengal suggest that detention frequently precedes verification rather than following it. In several cases, families have alleged that individuals were forced to prove citizenship after already being taken into custody. Such an approach effectively reverses the burden of proof and creates significant risks of wrongful exclusion.

Detailed report on deportation process may be read here.

Religious selectivity and the Citizenship Amendment Act

The controversy is further complicated by the interaction between deportation policy and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The CAA provides a pathway to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India before the prescribed cut-off date. Muslims are excluded.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has repeatedly emphasised that communities covered by the CAA will not face action under the deportation framework. Those outside its protection, however, remain vulnerable to detention and deportation. Two individuals entering India under similar circumstances may face radically different legal consequences depending upon their religious identity.

This concern is particularly acute because the overwhelming majority of those targeted by current deportation drives are Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Bangladesh pushes back

The crackdown has also generated significant diplomatic friction. Bangladesh has repeatedly objected to what it describes as attempts by Indian authorities to push individuals across the border without completing formal nationality verification procedures.

As per The Indian Express, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) officials have publicly stated that they blocked numerous attempts by Indian authorities to send individuals into Bangladesh without prior verification.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Shama Obaid, has stated that Dhaka has repeatedly communicated its concerns to New Delhi and insisted that existing bilateral mechanisms must be followed. The position of Bangladesh is straightforward: no person should be accepted unless their nationality has first been verified. India officially maintains that deportations occur only through established procedures.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has stated that India has submitted details of more than 2,860 suspected Bangladeshi nationals to Dhaka for verification. Yet the persistence of Bangladeshi objections suggests continuing disagreements regarding implementation.

The demography committee

The deportation drive is now being supplemented by a broader effort to study demographic change. The Union Government recently established a high-level committee chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar to examine demographic shifts allegedly caused by illegal migration and other factors. The committee’s mandate extends beyond research.

It has been tasked with recommending systems for identifying, detaining and deporting undocumented migrants and proposing mechanisms for strengthening border management and population monitoring. Its creation fulfils a commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and reflects the growing centrality of demographic concerns within government policy.

However, the language surrounding the committee has generated concern. Government statements describe demographic change arising from migration as an “unnatural” phenomenon and a “monumental challenge”. Such framing risks treating entire communities as demographic threats rather than as individuals possessing rights and legal protections.

Detailed report may be read here.

A constitutional test

India unquestionably has the authority to regulate immigration and remove foreign nationals who have entered or remained unlawfully. But citizenship determination is among the most consequential exercises of state power.

A mistaken arrest can be corrected. A mistaken deportation can leave a person stateless, imprisoned in a foreign country or permanently separated from family members. The experiences documented in Assam, the wrongful deportation allegations, Bangladesh’s repeated protests over alleged pushbacks, the establishment of detention infrastructure across West Bengal and the government’s push towards a nationwide deportation architecture collectively point to a deeper concern. The issue is no longer merely immigration enforcement.

It is whether the Indian state can pursue that objective while respecting the constitutional guarantees of fairness, equality and due process. As detention centres multiply, deportations accelerate and citizenship verification becomes increasingly securitised, the challenge confronting India is not simply identifying who belongs. It is ensuring that, in the process of deciding who does not, the state does not abandon the rule of law itself.

Related:

India’s Silent Push-Out: Courts, states, and the deportation of Bengali-Speaking Muslims

Gauhati HC orders clarity after state cites deportation of ‘Wrong Doyjan’ in alleged ‘pushback’ case, demands specific reply on her whereabouts

SC stays deportation of woman declared foreigner, issues notice on challenge to Gauhati HC Order

Contradictory Calls: SC halts one Tamil refugee’s deportation, denies another citing ‘not a Dharamshala’

Gauhati HC directs State to confirm custody or deportation of two men detained in midnight police action in Assam

Assam govt to SC: 33/63 of those marked for ‘deportation’ are contesting ‘foreigner’ status in courts

The post Who decides who belongs? Detention, deportation and the crisis of due process appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The judgment, delivered by Justice Neena Bansal Krishna on May 29, 2026, represents a comprehensive rejection of the allegations that formed the basis of nearly six years of investigation into the news portal’s foreign investment transactions. The Court not only found that the allegations failed to disclose the commission of any cognisable offence but went considerably further, characterising the proceedings as mala fide, arbitrary and an abuse of investigative powers directed against independent journalism.

The Court observed:

“Not only are the present proceedings only mala fide, but also an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of the Petitioners.” (Para 121)

The finding is remarkable both for its breadth and for the language employed by the Court. While courts frequently examine the legality of investigations, it is comparatively rare for a constitutional court to explicitly connect the exercise of investigative powers with concerns regarding press freedom and the functioning of independent media.

The Background: Foreign investment, criminal allegations and ED action

The case arose out of an investment received by PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt. Ltd., the company operating NewsClick, from US-based Worldwide Media Holdings LLC.

According to the allegations, NewsClick received approximately USD 1.5 million, amounting to around ₹9.59 crore, in April 2018 through a share subscription arrangement. The EOW alleged that the shares had been deliberately overvalued in order to circumvent restrictions governing foreign direct investment in news media entities. It was further alleged that the funds received through the investment were siphoned away through salaries, consultancy fees, rent and other operational expenditures.

Based on these allegations, an FIR was registered in August 2020 under Sections 406, 420 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code. Shortly thereafter, the Enforcement Directorate registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), treating the offences alleged in the FIR as scheduled offences capable of triggering a money laundering investigation.

The ED subsequently conducted extensive searches and seizures, raided NewsClick’s offices and the residences of journalists associated with the platform, and repeatedly summoned Purkayastha and other employees for questioning.

However, after examining the factual and legal basis of the allegations, the High Court concluded that the prosecution’s case suffered from fundamental defects at every stage.

No FDI restriction existed in 2018

The central allegation underlying the prosecution’s case was that NewsClick had received foreign investment in violation of restrictions applicable to news media organisations.

The Court found that this allegation was fundamentally misconceived. The judgment records that before receiving the investment, NewsClick had sought clarification from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting regarding the applicability of foreign investment restrictions to online news platforms. In response, the Ministry clarified on January 5, 2018 that online publication through websites and web portals did not fall within the ambit of print media.

Relying on this clarification, the Court observed that there was no cap on foreign investment in digital news platforms at the time the investment was received.

The Court held:

” From the response received from the Ministry in respect of FDI Policy, it was clearly evident that there was no cap on the online publication of news and thus, the Agreement between the Petitioner and M/s Worldwide Media Holdings LLC and, therefore, the Investment Agreement dated 20.03.2018 cannot be said to be in violation of any law or disclosing any criminal offence. The receiving of 1.5Million USD that were remitted on 11.04.2018 in exchange of 7.69% shares of the Petitioner Company.” (Para 70)

Consequently, the Investment Agreement dated March 20, 2018 and the remittance received on April 11, 2018 could not be said to violate any law or disclose any criminal offence. This finding strikes at the heart of the prosecution’s case. The allegation that NewsClick structured the investment to evade foreign investment restrictions necessarily depended on the existence of such restrictions. Once the Court concluded that no cap existed at the relevant time, the principal basis of the investigation effectively collapsed.

The Court rejects the share overvaluation theory

The investigating agencies also alleged that NewsClick had deliberately overvalued its shares in order to facilitate the foreign investment transaction. The Court found no substance in this allegation.

The judgment records that the company had obtained a valuation certificate from BGJC Associates LLP, which assessed the fair value of the shares at ₹9,188 per share in accordance with FEMA requirements. The Court noted that there was no allegation of manipulation or illegality in the valuation exercise itself.

The final investment was made at a higher value after negotiations between the investor and the company. The Court observed that the share price was mutually agreed upon after considering the prospects and growth potential of the company. Significantly, the Court refused to criminalise what was essentially a commercial decision.

Justice Krishna observed:

“It is an economic decision which does not spell out any criminal offence.” (Para 73)

The Court further accepted the company’s explanation that the valuation had been undertaken through the Discounted Cash Flow method, an internationally recognised valuation methodology accepted under Indian regulatory frameworks.

The judgment therefore draws a clear distinction between commercial valuation disputes and criminal wrongdoing, holding that the former cannot automatically be transformed into the latter in the absence of evidence of fraud or deception.

The allegation of siphoning funds was found untenable

Another major plank of the prosecution’s case was the allegation that foreign investment received by NewsClick had been siphoned away through salaries, consultancy fees, rent and other operational expenditures. The Court rejected this allegation outright.

Justice Krishna observed that these expenditures were entirely consistent with the functioning of a digital media organisation and represented ordinary business expenses incurred in the course of running the company. The Court held that even if one were to assume that excessive expenditure had been incurred, that fact alone would not disclose the commission of a criminal offence.

The judgment states:

“Even if it is accepted that there were over payments and excessive expenditure incurred by the Petitioner, then too it does not disclose any criminal offence. The allegation of siphoning is, therefore, not tenable.” (Para 76)

This finding effectively dismantled the prosecution’s attempt to portray routine operational expenditure as evidence of criminal activity.

The RBI’s findings undermined the investigation

One of the more significant aspects of the judgment concerns the Court’s treatment of material received from the Reserve Bank of India. The Court noted that an earlier status report prepared during the investigation recorded that the RBI had informed investigators that the foreign remittance had been received through the automatic route and that there had been no delay in the issuance of shares or compliance with reporting requirements under FEMA.

According to the judgment, the RBI had stated that:

” Significantly, one Status Report dated 26.07.2021, copy of which was forwarded to the Petitioner as an advance copy, though not placed on record, clearly stated that during the course of investigation a Reply from RBI had been received wherein it was mentioned that as per the Form FCGPR, the foreign inward remittance was under automatic route and there was no delay in issue of shares as well as reporting, as per the extant FEMA regulations in case of the Petitioner.” (Para 77)

The Court noted that this material was subsequently withdrawn from later status reports. Nevertheless, it held that the correspondence was sufficient to indicate that no FEMA violations had been established against the company. The observation significantly weakened the prosecution’s attempt to portray the investment as unlawful.

The allegation that the investor was non-existent failed

The State had also alleged that Worldwide Media Holdings LLC did not legally exist and that the transaction was therefore fraudulent. The Court found that the allegation was unsupported by the material on record.

The company explained that although an earlier entity bearing the same name had been dissolved under Delaware law, a new company with the same name had subsequently been incorporated. The Court noted that nothing had emerged during the investigation to establish that the entity which invested in NewsClick was non-existent. Indeed, the status reports filed by the investigating agencies were largely silent on this aspect. The allegation therefore failed to withstand judicial scrutiny.

No offence of cheating was made out

Having examined the factual allegations, the Court proceeded to analyse whether the offences alleged in the FIR were legally sustainable. With respect to Section 420 IPC, the Court observed that the offence of cheating requires the existence of a person who has been deceived and dishonestly induced to part with property.

In the present case, the investor itself had never alleged that it had been cheated. Worldwide Media Holdings LLC had not lodged any complaint against NewsClick and no material emerged during the investigation suggesting that any person had been deceived.

The Court observed:

” For the offence of cheating, it is necessary that there must be an aggrieved person who has been cheated out of his valuable property. In this case, M/s Worldwide Media Holdings LLC is the entity which had forwarded 1.5 Million USD to the Petitioner. However, there is no Complaint whatsoever, by the Company about having been cheated by the Petitioner. Pertinently, the Complaint had been made by one Shoban Singh, who was merely an informant and was not the aggrieved person. There is nothing which has emerged even during the investigations as reflected in the Status Report, that there was any person who was aggrieved or who was cheated by the Petitioner. The offence of cheating even if all the allegations made are admitted, is not established.” (Para 83)

Accordingly, the essential ingredients of cheating were absent.

No criminal breach of trust either

The Court reached a similar conclusion regarding the allegation under Section 406 IPC. Justice Krishna observed that criminal breach of trust requires entrustment of property and its subsequent misappropriation. Neither requirement was satisfied in the present case.

The transaction between NewsClick and Worldwide Media Holdings LLC was an investment in exchange for shares. The Court held that such a transaction could not, “by no stretch of interpretation,” be characterised as entrustment or misappropriation. Consequently, the offence under Section 406 IPC was also found to be absent.

The Court concluded:

” Even if all the allegations are accepted, no offence under 406 or 420 IPC is disclosed in the FIR and in the subsequent investigations that have been undertaken.” (Para 85)

The Court rejects the ED’s conspiracy argument

Recognising the weakness of the allegations under Sections 406 and 420 IPC, the Enforcement Directorate sought to rely on Section 120B IPC, arguing that the investment transaction itself constituted a criminal conspiracy involving Purkayastha and the foreign investors.

The Court was unconvinced. It noted that criminal conspiracy requires an agreement to commit an illegal act or a legal act through illegal means. The material placed before the Court disclosed neither. The allegations of conspiracy were unsupported by evidence and amounted to little more than assertions.

Justice Krishna therefore held:

“ From the reply of ED, it is evident that the allegation that there is a clear-cut existence of a scheduled offence, is totally misconceived and baseless.” (Para 117)

This finding proved fatal to the ED’s case because the existence of a scheduled offence is a jurisdictional prerequisite for invoking the PMLA.

A “fishing and roving exercise” without any offence

Perhaps the most severe criticism in the judgment should be directed at the manner in which the investigation was conducted. The Court noted that years had passed since the registration of the ECIR. Numerous summons had been issued. Purkayastha and various employees had repeatedly joined the investigation. Searches had been conducted and extensive inquiries had been undertaken. Yet no material establishing the commission of a criminal offence had emerged.

The Court concluded:

“ Two years have passed since the registration of impugned ECIR in 2022. The Petitioner No. 2 and various employees of Petitioner number one have joined investigations on numerous occasions in 2021, after which they have not been summoned even once between September 2021 to June 2022. The manner in which the investigations have been conducted clearly show that the same is a fishing and roving exercise in the financial affairs of the Petitioners without the existence of any offence.” (Para 119)

The observation goes beyond a criticism of investigative shortcomings. It reflects the Court’s conclusion that the investigation itself lacked a legally sustainable foundation.

Quashing the FIR and the ECIR

Having found that the FIR disclosed no offence under Sections 406, 420 or 120B IPC, the Court held that its continuation amounted to a “gross abuse of the process of law.” The FIR was accordingly quashed.

Once the FIR fell, the ECIR could not survive. The Court reiterated the settled principle that where the predicate offence is quashed, the corresponding money laundering proceedings must also fall. The ECIR registered by the Enforcement Directorate was therefore quashed in its entirety.

Why the judgment matters

The significance of the judgment extends well beyond the immediate relief granted to NewsClick and Prabir Purkayastha. The Court did not merely find gaps in the evidence. It found that the allegations themselves failed to disclose criminal offences. It rejected the factual premises underlying the investigation, dismantled the legal basis for the offences invoked, and questioned the very foundation of the ED’s exercise of jurisdiction under the PMLA.

Most significantly, the Court linked the proceedings to broader concerns regarding press freedom, concluding that the case represented not only a legally unsustainable prosecution but also a misuse of investigative powers against independent journalism.

In doing so, the judgment stands as a significant reaffirmation of a basic constitutional principle: that criminal law cannot be invoked merely on suspicion, and that the extraordinary powers of investigation available to the State must remain anchored to an identifiable offence supported by law and evidence.

The complete judgment may be read here.

Detailed reports on cases against Prabir Purkayastha may be read here and here.

Related:

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

J & K: Attempt to muzzle FoE, Media? Police summons to media, journalists

“This system breaks the body when it cannot break the spirit” — Ipsa Shatakshi on her jailed husband, journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh

How the noose tightened: understanding modus operandi of killers who took the life of journalist-activist, Gauri Lankesh

Assam: Journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumdar detained for 12 hours, arrested after covering protest against an alleged recruitment scam involving key BJP leaders

The post No Crime, No Predicate Offence, No ED Case: Delhi High Court quashes proceedings against NewsClick appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) 2026 was conducted on May 3, 2026, however, it is set to be re-conducted in June. Let’s look at the timeline of events that led to this redo.

Before the May 3 exam, the NTA said the exam was conducted under “full security protocol”, including GPS-tracked paper transport, biometric verification, AI-assisted CCTV monitoring, and 5G jammers at centres. The test was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres, with nearly 23 lakh candidates having registered. On the night of May 3, when Suthar (a chemistry teacher from Sikar, Rajasthan) was discussing the NEET questions with his students, he came across a PDF document that went viral a day before the exam. That document had all the chemistry questions that appeared in the actual exam. It further contained ninety of the biology questions that were asked in the exam. Following this discovery, Suthar informed the Rajasthan police and the NTA.

Now, the probe starts. One of the first breakthroughs in the investigation came when Rajasthan Police’s Special Operations Group arrested the alleged mastermind from Dehradun on May 7. A day later, four more persons, all NEET aspirants from Dehradun, were arrested and brought to Sikar for further interrogation. Among the five, the police said that the counsellor is accused of selling the leaked question paper to aspirants as a “Guess Paper.” He had allegedly received it from someone in Kerala, and it was suspected he managed to obtain probable questions of the examination paper even before it was sent for printing. The NTA escalated the matter to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for “independent verification and necessary action.”

The Rajasthan Police inquiry linked the suspected document to an MBBS student from Churu who was at the time studying at a medical college in Kerala. It was quickly spread through NEET aspirants who shared it with each other. The probe also revealed that the material was widely shared through encrypted messaging apps and social media, with some recovered chats reportedly carrying the “forwarded many times” label, suggesting that the questions may have reached a large number of students before the exam. The guess paper was sold to students at rates between Rs 20,000 and Rs 2 lakh, with some media reports indicating charges as high as Rs 5 lakh. By the night before the exam, copies were allegedly circulating for around Rs 30,000 each.

On May 12, nine days after the conduct of the examination, the NTA officially cancelled NEET UG 2026 “in the interest of students” and to protect the credibility of the national examination system. However, the probe continued.

In order to understand how structural and rooted the corruption in the national examination system is, it is imperative to look at the findings that followed the probe. On May 13, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) moved the Supreme Court challenging the “systemic failure” of the NTA in conducting NEET-UG 2026. The petition sought directions to replace or fundamentally restructure the NTA and to conduct a fresh NEET-UG 2026 examination under judicial supervision, including digital encryption and locking of question papers, a transition to a digital test model, and publication of centre-wise results for detection of statistical anomalies and organised malpractice.

Prahlad Vittal Rao Kulkarni, identified as the alleged kingpin and a domain expert in chemistry from Latur who had for years served on panels involved in setting the NEET question paper, was arrested on May 15, for allegedly exploiting his access to confidential material. He allegedly hosted special coaching classes at his house in the last week of April and dictated questions to a select students. On May 16, the CBI arrested Manisha Gurunath Mandhare, a biology lecturer who was part of the NTA’s paper-setting committee for the NEET exam held on May 3. The arrest was made on the basis of questioning of P V Kulkarni and other accused in the paper leak case. She was allegedly involved in the examination process and appointed by the NTA as an expert with complete access to the Botany and Zoology question papers. Mandhare is alleged to have mobilised prospective NEET examination candidates in April 2026 through Manisha Wagmare of Pune (she was arrested on May 14) and conducted special coaching classes for students at her home, dictating leaked questions and collecting lakhs of rupees as fee. Most of these questions tallied with the questions that appeared in the examination on May 3. The CBI on May 22 arrested Manisha Sanjay Havaldar. She had been appointed by the NTA as an expert to set the question paper for the physics section. Investigators found that she allegedly shared several Physics questions with co-accused Manisha Mandhare in April 2026.

There were several other arrests made by the CBI in relation to this from States such as Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana.

On May 21, NTA Director General Abhishek Singh appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports. Singh told the committee that the agency does not view the NEET exam as having been “leaked.” Even when Opposition members pressed for answers, NTA officials stuck to their position that the CBI is investigating, and they would only call it a leak if the CBI finished its probe and confirmed it. On questions from MPs about how the NEET paper was leaked, Singh said it was “not leaked through their system“. Several MPs asked him then how did the paper get leaked and what was the need to cancel the exam and hold a re-test. He had no answer and insisted that CBI was looking into the matter. Some opposition MPs demanded that the probe report be presented before the panel, but BJP members objected, saying the CBI is an independent body and should be allowed to do its work.

On May 29, the NTA informed the Supreme Court that it was all set to conduct NEET UG in digital testing mode from the next year instead of the pen and paper mode. The NTA’s affidavit stated to the Supreme Court in relation to the several petitions (including the aforesaid FAIMA petition) that the transition will be implemented from the next examination cycle in consultation with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare thereby bringing all major NTA examinations onto the digital testing platform. Regarding the June 21 re-examination, the NTA told the Court that the re-examination scheduled on June 21, will be conducted under a further strengthened SOP framework and with multi-layer authentication.

This paper leak saga shows how deeply percolated corruption is in Indian educational system is. Students who work tirelessly for months and even years are failed by the system consistently. It erodes the faith public has in the government in conducting something as rudimentary as exams. The repercussions of such failures are tragic and extremely disheartening. The next section shall deal with the distress such failures cause to the students and the extreme steps that they are forced to take.

Aftermath, Young Lives lost

NEET is the biggest exam in terms of number of applicants in India, and is mandatory for anyone who aims to take admission in medical courses. In the hope of becoming doctors, students spend years preparing for the exam in extremely competitive and burdensome environments. Therefore, when the news of its cancellation was out, the consequences were tragic.

Pradeep, 21, had taken the exam twice before but failed to secure the needed marks. This time, the moment he walked out of the examination hall, he hugged his father and said, “Papa, this time I have become a doctor.” He had spent lakhs of rupees and countless hours preparing for the exam. As per the answer key of the exam conducted on May 3, Pradeep was securing a seat in a government medical college with ease. However, the news of cancellation put him in so much despair that he died by suicide. Pradeep Manich, 23, was a labourer’s son who had been living in a rented accommodation in Sikar away from his home. Reportedly, his family had sold their land and taken loans to fund his coaching and expenses for NEET. After his third attempt, the news of the paper leak and re-examination left him hopeless and disillusioned. He was devastated and he hanged himself days after the exam. Akanksha Chaturvedi had been preparing for the medical entrance exam in Nagpur and reportedly suffered from severe depression triggered by the cancellation, and ultimately, died by suicide. Her suicide note said, ” I no longer have the courage to take the NEET exam again. I was scoring good marks in my first attempt, but now there is no guarantee that I will perform well again.” Her father, a farmer, worked as a cook in Nagpur, and also put himself in financial debt to support her dreams of becoming a doctor. In Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri, 21 years old Ritik Mishra died by suicide after reportedly distressed by the cancellation of the examination. Further, a 17 years old boy from Goa district took his life after the cancellation owing to academic stress and concerns over balancing studies with his passion for hockey.

19 years old Divyansh Sharma from Sikar tells how impactful such re-examinations are psychologically. Sharma says that when students spend one or two years preparing and the paper gets leaked, it feels devastating. He made it clear that beyond financial loss, the greatest cost is time. Talking about his own experience, he said Sikar (a hub for competitive exams preparation) as an emotionally draining environment, filled with overcrowded hostels, endless classes, and routines built entirely around mock tests and revision. The competition is so intense that students study throughout the entire day. When news breaks that an exam will be held again due to a leak, it kills motivation. He also points out that the psychological challenge is significant, as students begin to doubt whether they can replicate their previous level of performance. Devadrita Dam, an 18 years old aspirant from Gurgaon, had been genuinely hopeful after the exam because the paper seemed easier compared to previous years. In the week following the exam, she was finally reconnecting with friends after months of social isolation that the exam forces under the guise of rigour of preparation. Then her best friend sent her a message saying the paper had been cancelled. She initially assumed it was a joke, but her uncle called to confirm the news. She broke down crying at the thought of having to go through the entire process again. According to Dam, the leak has seriously shaken students’ faith in the system.

These heart-breaking stories show how disproportionately the cancellation of exams affected students who came from lower income families. And how, the system failed the students by not being able to conduct an exam of such importance with honesty and transparency.

Owing to these incidents in light of systemic failure of the education system towards its students, there were protests as legitimate expression of anguish by students. On May 12, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) staged a massive protest at Shastri Bhawan. Protestors were seen climbing the barricades at Shastri Bhawan to show their disappointment and anger. Characteristically Delhi Police detained several protestors. This was the same day the NTA officially confirmed the exam’s cancellation showing that the students were in the streets within hours of the announcement. A couple of days later on May 16, NSUI staged a massive protest outside the NTA headquarters in Delhi under the banner of the “NTA Halla Bol” campaign. The protestors rightly pointed out the suicides that took place owing to NTA’s failure that led to the re-examination.

Further, IYC activists took out a protest march from Teen Murti Circle towards the Education Minister’s residence holding posters and banners. However, they were stopped by police barricades and some protestors had been detained as well. Members of the All India Students’ Association (AISA) staged a demonstration demanding accountability for recurring examination irregularities outside the Ministry of Education on June 1. These protestors were also later detained by Police. On May 31 in Bhopal and on June 1 in Bhubaneswar, torchlight marches were organised outside the residence of Dharmendra Pradhan demanding his resignation over the paper leak issue. Moreover, On June 6, IYC President Uday Bhanu Chib led thousands in a protest in Haryana. Protesters faced water cannons and even barricades and police lathis. Despite of such protests the mainstream media has remained silent on both the fronts, raising voice against the government that allowed such a leak to happen, and it has remained silent on these protests by not covering their plight, anguish and courage to protest against such failures. And whenever such protests are shown, the lens is partisan— a political battle between Congress and BJP. Instead of putting the plight of the students at the centre of its coverage, the narrative is completely shifted to party politics. The response by the State that included, barricading, detention, shooting water guns, reflect how the state has increasingly collapsed the distinction between disruption and dissent. A detailed report on the mainstream media’s cold shoulder and on the protests that happened nationwide can be read here.

Repeated Leaks

It is imperative to note that the NEET exam was earlier leaked just two years ago! The 2024 NEET examination had an unusually high number of top rankers. Further, many students received scores that appeared mathematically impossible. This raised the concerns of paper being leaked. The CBI in pursuance of these allegations of paper leak arrested 40 individuals. The government’s initial posture was flat denial. When Dharmendra Pradhan took charge as Education Minister in June 2024, he told reporters that “there is no corruption or paper leak in NEET-UG 2024.” This position was maintained even as police in multiple states were making arrests and producing evidence to the contrary.

Subsequently, the matter reached the Supreme Court. The Court said there would be no re-examination, ruling that the data on record was not enough to show a systematic leak. However, the Court stated that there was a paper leak, though it found it localised to the areas of Hazaribagh and Patna. It simultaneously acknowledged serious weaknesses within the NTA and insisted on structural reform to prevent such instances from repeating. Following this, a committee namely Dr. K. Radhakrishnan Committee was setup. The Court specifically directed the committee to examine the viability of comprehensive CCTV surveillance, surprise inspections, secure transportation systems, digital tracking, and stricter identity verification mechanisms. The court also directed the Ministry of Education to monitor implementation through a Steering Committee. The Radhakrishnan committee submitted its report in October 2024 to the central government, that contained several recommendations to prevent future leaks. These included a shift to digital testing to eliminate the vulnerabilities of physical paper handling, biometric verification, AI-based surveillance, encrypted digital question delivery, and multi-stage examination formats. In January 2025, the Centre told the Supreme Court that it would implement all these corrective measures as suggested by the committee.

Now, the question that crops up is, what did the government do? Unsurprisingly, the answer is nothing. Despite recommendations by the K. Radhakrishnan committee after the 2024 controversy, the examination continued under the same manner as before. The NTA has immense structural problems that facilitates such leaks and other issues commonly faced by students (some problems are left unaddressed by the committee itself). The National Testing Agency was established in 2017 without parliamentary debate, public consultation, or a statutory foundation. It operates as a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 rather than as a body created by legislation. Its memorandum of association (a basic charter that any registered organisation is expected to publish) has never appeared on its website, unlike comparable bodies such as the CBSE. The agency’s financial workings are equally opaque. While institutions like the UPSC and AIIMS publish detailed annual reports with budget allocations and expenditure data, the NTA has simply stated on its website that because the number of exams it conducts varies each year, it is “difficult to maintain Head-wise/Exam-wise Budget.” For an agency that collects fees from over two crore candidates annually and outsources significant work to private contractors, this opacity raised eyebrows to say the least.

The biggest problem that NTA has is its outsourcing tendencies. The NTA contracts out some of its most consequential functions such as setting up exam centres, managing physical security, capturing biometric data, to other parties. This problem needs to understood in tandem with the fact that it coordinates with a network of private actors that has no published standards of governing and nobody knows how those actors are selected, supervised, or held accountable. The result has been visible in examination halls where power cuts lasted over an hour or even when students were handed out rainwater-soaked answer sheets. Nothing about the process of setting question papers is publicly known. The qualifications required of paper setters, the processes they follow, and the safeguards against conflicts of interest is simply not disclosed. The CBSE publishes a detailed document specifying exactly these things, including the duties of “secrecy officers” responsible for maintaining confidentiality through the examination process. The NTA has no equivalent. This goes on to show how much opacity is present in the entire process of conducting the examinations– from setting of papers to the conduct of exam on the final day. In toto, it is a centralised body that works with near zero accountability. In such a setting, bluntly, lapses are inevitable.

NOT JUST NTA OR NEET

However, the problem in the examination framework of India is by no means limited to the NTA but runs much deeper.

In May 2026, the Central Board of Secondary Education declared Class 12 results.  There was a drop in passing percentage this year by 3 points. Consequently, students wanted to check their answer sheets and see what went wrong. However, it was found that, students were receiving wrong answer sheets. Evaluators were marking blurred, illegible scans. Pages had gone missing. This year marked On-screen marking’s (OSM) first use by CBSE. The promise of OSM was quite handsome. In OSM, answer sheets are scanned, digitised, and uploaded to a secure portal. Examiners log in remotely and mark on their screens, this marking is then auto-tabulated by the system. CBSE had, in fact, conceived of OSM back in 2014 but shelved the idea because of logistical difficulties. Cut to 2026, CBSE announced its plan on using OSM. During mandatory mock evaluation sessions on February 26, 2026, teachers reported portal access failures, slow system performance, and errors in teacher data on the registration portal. Knowing all this, and instead of going for a phased launch of the technology, CBSE still decided to rollout the technology all at once, for nearly 1 crore answer scripts. In a March 16 circular, CBSE warned Class 10 and 12 evaluators of legal action for sharing “misleading” information about the marking process on social media and declared that evaluation is confidential, therefore, it should not be discussed.

Once the results were out, students who accessed their answer sheets via the OSM verification portal found pages scanned so poorly that not a single line was legible yet the examiner had marked them. On various Reddit and X posts, students described evaluators placing red ticks and numerical scores on images that were, functionally, blank. These problems gained traction when Vedant Shrivastava posted his Physics answer sheet on X. When he checked his answer script he found out that someone else’s answer sheet was marked instead of his. There was a clear difference in handwriting. CBSE eventually admitted the error and issued the correct scanned copy, but only after Vedant’s post had gone viral.

I am a CBSE Class 12 student.

After receiving unexpectedly low marks in Physics, we applied for photocopies of my answer sheets through the CBSE reevaluation process.

Today we received the copies.

And I am shattered because the Physics answer sheet uploaded by CBSE is not mine

— VEDANT (@VEDANTSHRIV17) May 23, 2026

Along the same vein, Sanjana, found that every page of her Chemistry answer booklet belonged to a completely different person. CBSE later acknowledged it had “discarded around 30 answer sheets due to issues like unclear images and duplicate entries” without re-scanning them, this means some students were potentially evaluated on nothing whatsoever.

I applied for CBSE revaluation. The scanned copy of my chemistry sheet I received does not match my handwriting or written responses.
For reference, I am attaching my English answer sheet, which clearly reflects my actual handwriting. pic.twitter.com/laINaEMAP3

— Sanjana (@Sanjanaopxe) May 25, 2026

These issues could largely be pinned to the vendor who was responsible for the application the of OSM technology. The company entrusted with building and running the OnMark digital evaluation platform for CBSE is Coempt Edu Teck Private Limited, a Hyderabad based education technology firm. It was formerly known as Globarena Technologies Private Limited, and it had in the past made grave errors in technological applications. Those errors had led to several suicides as well.

If this company had such discouraging past, how did it manage to get the tender? The inconsistencies in floating of three tenders before finally settling with Coempt Edu Teck was first reported in the Hindustan Times.  Later, Sarthak Sidhant, a 17 years old Class 12 student from Jharkhand showed gave a breakdown of the requirements were consistently to grant then tender were changed several times in a way that made Coempt eligible for it. He spent days readings official CBSE bidding documents on the Central Public Procurement Portal, and tracked changes across three successive versions of the tender.  He published his findings in a blog post, these findings reveal the deep percolated corruption in the system that allowed Coempt to bag the tender.

The original Request for proposal (RFP) contained three specific clauses that would disqualify a vendor for poor past performance. These clauses were entirely removed from the revised RFP. A company with Coempt’s track record would have been eliminated at the gate under the original standards. Further, the minimum revenue threshold was set at ₹50 crore in an earlier version of the tender. It was pointed out that Coempt, would not to meet this threshold therefore, the same was revised in ways that made the company eligible. Capability Maturity Model Integration levels (these are standard benchmarks for software development capabilities) were also reportedly adjusted in the new tenders. The tender was first issued in February 2025. After the initial process failed to move forward, it was re-issued in May 2025, then again. Each iteration, Sidhant alleged, brought the eligibility criteria closer to Coempt’s actual profile. The cybersecurity standards required of the vendor were also scaled back across each of these successive drafts.

Furthermore, Nisarg Adhikari, a 19 years old ethical hacker broke into CBSE’s OSM portal and found several vulnerabilities. He found out numerous flaws that could allow anyone with basic technical knowledge to bypass OTP authentication, impersonate examiners, reset passwords, and even alter marks scored by students! This demonstrates how poorly the OSM was developed and deployed. The entire process of implementing OMS was marred with corruption that rewarded incompetence.

Across the 18 lakh who appeared for Class 12 board exams this year, there is now an uncertainty about the integrity of their results. Even students who scored well and were not directly affected by the visible failures have no guarantee that their marks accurately reflect their performance. This is the case because the system that produced those marks has been publicly demonstrated to be insecure and badly managed. The Board had twelve years to plan OSM after first conceiving it in 2014. It chose to deploy it overnight. It awarded the contract 74 days before exams began. It accepted security certificates covering other people’s systems. It threatened teachers who raised concerns with legal action

The response to these revelations

Instead of any of this being on the front page, it was a teenager that cracked the story open. Several right-wing social media accounts started heckling Vedant (student who received the wrong physics answer script) as anti-national. He was also derogatorily called as a Pakistani. Among those who amplified this heckling was Ashok Shrivastav, a journalist and primetime anchor at Doordarshan News. Shrivastav posted a screenshot of Vedant’s profile location (which showed South Asia) and commented “Did Pakistanis also appear for CBSE exams?!!”

A journalist at a taxpayer-funded national broadcaster took a grievance from a student who had received the wrong answer sheet, checked the geolocation setting of his fresh social media account, and concluded that the most plausible explanation was Pakistani subterfuge.

This shows the levels that Indian Media has stooped down to. Vedant and his family were inundated with abuse. They were called “Pakistani agents,” “anti-national,” “Soros agents,” and members of the “Deep State.” 17 years old who had spent the year studying for his boards, who had done nothing more than post proof of an institutional failure affecting his own marks, was now managing a mental health crisis on top of everything else.

This response is not exclusive to Vedant, even Nisarg and Sarthak who did a commendable job in showing the truth behind the tender allocation and the various infirmities of the present OSM system were treated with the same vitriolic response. The logic of this rhetoric works like this. Any complaint about a government system is, by definition, motivated by hostility to India. Anyone motivated by hostility to India is acting on behalf of India’s enemies. Pakistan is the most convenient enemy. Therefore, any complaint = Pakistani.

CONSTITUTONAL DIMENSIONS

The right to life under Article 21, as interpreted through Unnikrishnan and subsequent decisions, encompasses the right to education. The judiciary has consistently read Article 21 expansively to include not just bare survival but the conditions necessary for a dignified human existence. Access to a fair, uncorrupted examination is not peripheral to this right. For millions of students, particularly those from lower-income families who cannot afford private alternatives or second attempts, NEET and CBSE board exams are the singular pathway to a livelihood and a dignified future. When those pathways are sabotaged by institutional negligence and structural corruption, the right to a dignified life is contravened. The suicides that followed the 2026 NEET cancellation are the most extreme indictment of this constitutional violation. Moreover, paper leak that was facilitated by state appointed officials violated the right to equality.  It gave an undue advantage to some candidates over others who attempted the examination honestly. Two candidates sit for the same exam. One has seen the questions. One has not. They are not equal before that paper, and the State made them unequal. The Supreme Court’s commitment to protecting the integrity of competitive examinations was further reinforced in a 2015 decision (Tanvi Sarwal v. Central Board of Secondary Education) involving the CBSE, where the Court directed that a fresh all-India medical entrance examination be held after concluding that widespread use of electronic devices had compromised the process beyond repair.

The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 represents the legislature’s acknowledgment that examination fraud is a criminal offence. It contravenes the foundational principles of constitution such as equal treatment of everyone. The Act criminalises question paper leakage, unauthorised access to confidential material, organised distribution networks, impersonation, and digital facilitation of cheating. It extends liability beyond individual bad actors to service providers, vendors, printing contractors, and institutional officers, making negligence and collusion equally punishable. The existence of this statute makes the State’s failure 2026 constitutionally indefensible. The legislature had already recognised, through this law, that paper leaks violate the foundational conditions of fair competition. That recognition maps directly onto the Article 14 guarantee of substantive equality. When the executive arm of the State allowed an institutional architecture that permitted paper setters with unrestricted access to confidential material to operate without oversight. It significantly increased the chances of such leaks, and in turn, increased the chances of constitutional violations as written above.

The way the State responded to the protests that broke out in response of these constitutional violations are quite telling. The Supreme Court has recognised in multiple decisions that the right to protest is implied in Article 19 and that the State must make genuine arrangements for dissent to be heard rather than suppressed. When Delhi Police detained students within hours of the cancellation announcement, when water cannons were deployed in Haryana, when IYC marchers were stopped before they could reach the Education Minister’s residence, the State directly prevented public accountability. The restrictions that Article 19(2) permits on these freedoms must be reasonable and proportionate. Treating students the way they were treated for protesting the loss of an examination they spent years preparing for fails any honest proportionality test.

References for this analysis may be found here.

(The programme research team also consists of interns; this resource has been worked on by Hamzah Patel)

Related:

Equity on Hold: Supreme Court’s interim stay of the UGC Regulations, 2026

CBSE tries to promote RSS ideologues with essay competitions

Failings of Indian Legal Education System

Educational inequities worsen for Muslim students in India

How many lives will it take before India acknowledges dominant caste hegemony in educational institutes?

The post The system that keeps failing appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Khurram Parvez was arrested close to five years ago, in a case registered against him by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for alleged terror funding, conspiracy and recruiting persons for the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Parvez was arrested in the case on November 22, 2021 from Srinagar. He was remanded to judicial custody on February 25, 2022, following series of police custody remands.

On December 19, 2024, the date he filed the appeal, Parvez had been in custody for a total period of roughly 3 years and 1 month. Today –when the judgement is finally delivered–the period of incarceration totals 4 years and 7 months. It took a year and six months for disposal of a bail appeal in the Delhi HC!

The NIA alleged that a network linked to the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) recruited Over Ground Workers (OGWs), gathered intelligence on security installations and facilitated terror funding. Parvez was arrested during the investigation, although he was not named in the original FIR. According to the charge sheet, the allegations against him were that he recruited OGWs for LeT, collected information regarding the movement and structure of the Army, had links with Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, and instigated protests following the killing of Burhan Wani in 2016.

Khurram’s appeal however strongly argued that the prosecution’s case against Parvez was unsupported by evidence and that he is a “factual stranger” to the larger conspiracy alleged by the NIA. It was also Parvez’s case that there was no digital evidence showing his contact with members of any proscribed terrorist organisation and that no call detail records were collected regarding the alleged meeting between him and co-accused Muneer Ahmad Kataria.

Parvez also argued that he is a human rights activist and was the Programme Coordinator and Spokesperson of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and also the Chairperson of the Philippines-based Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), which campaigns on the issue of enforced disappearances. In his appeal, Parvez said that he was a factual stranger to the alleged conspiracy and that the investigators had failed to establish any contact between him and LeT operatives or members of any banned organisation. He stated that an examination of digital devices seized from him revealed no communication with alleged handlers or evidence of recruitment of overground workers.

He also rejected the allegations that his past visits to Pakistan demonstrate links with proscribed organisations, stating that the trips were undertaken publicly as part of humanitarian and advocacy initiatives, including campaigns against landmines and enforced disappearances.

In his bail application, Khurram Pervez argued that there was no evidence that Parvez passed sensitive military information to any terrorist operative and that there was no allegation linking him to any alleged terror-funding money trail.  Counsel for Pervez included senior advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir, along with Ms. Swati Khanna, Ms. Raminder Kaur, Mr. Md. Imran Ahmad, Mr. Shahzad Khan and Mr. Kartik Venu. The bail plea was filed through advocate Kartik Venu.For the NIA, advocates Mr. Rahul Tyagi, SPP, Ms. Priya Rai, Mr. Shubham Goyal, Mr. Jatin Khatri, Mr. Amit Rohila appeared.

Related:

Supreme Court refers UAPA bail jurisprudence to larger bench; grants interim bail to Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi in Delhi riots conspiracy case

UAPA is a Very Unjust Law in Terms of Bail…Almost Like a Life Sentence: Anand Grover

J’khand HC grants bail to UAPA accused as no link to Al-Qaeda established

The post UAPA: Delhi HC grants Bail to Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez after close to 5 years in alleged terror funding case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Sleeping Under an Open Sky on No-Man’s Land: Two Children, Ten Lives, and the Machinery of Exclusion appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On June 6, Saturday, when a huge concentration of media attention was on the “Cockroach” gathering at Jantar Mantar, the IYC President , Uday Bhanu Chib, led thousands in a protest in Haryana. Protesters faced water cannons and even barricades and police lathis, demonstrating a vibrant protest, again ignored by ‘mainstream’ media.

Cockroaches from Congress in Haryana. pic.twitter.com/lYsm6d4csW

— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) June 6, 2026

IYC and NSUI launched district and state-wide protests all over the country following the May 3 NEET UG (Undergraduate) cancellation that left hundreds of thousands of students in distress and limbo, some even taking their own lives.

It is not a coincidence that a day earlier, on May 15, 2026 a controversial remark by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, during a hearing on fraudulent degrees when he criticised the behaviour of “unemployed youths, journalists and activists comparing them to “cockroaches” led to widespread outrage. The very next day not only did the Youth Congress launch its large protest in the capital, but a young Indian, living in Boston, Abhijeet Dipke gave the call for the launch of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) that resonated among the young!

The NEET UG (Undergraduate) 2026 examination was held on May 3 across 551 Indian cities and 14 international locations for over 22 lakh candidates. It was subsequently cancelled on May 12 following allegations of an orchestrated paper leak. The examination has now been rescheduled for June 21 with improved security arrangements. At least seven student suicides linked to the NEET-UG 2026 examination were reported in May alone, highlighting the intense psychological pressure faced by candidates. The distress has been attributed to the sudden cancellation of the exam and ongoing uncertainty over a re-test, against the backdrop of widespread paper leak allegations impacting over 2.2 million aspirants.

Senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said the party would continue to press for accountability. Speaking after a protest in New Delhi, he called for “a secure and transparent system” to prevent future leaks. Politically, Congress has mobilised protests across several states through its student wing, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). Demonstrations have included marches, candlelight vigils and symbolic protests, with leaders alleging that the issue reflects deeper institutional failures. Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib who was even detained and jailed by the Delhi police on instructions of the Modi government in February 2026, has been leading from the front: he has referred to reports of student distress and suicides, calling for greater accountability from the government. In February 2026, Uday Bhan Chib, who hails from Jammu had led shirtless protests against the Modi government for the national shame that arose out of the AI international summit especially related to the showcasing of a Chinese innovation by a an Indian commercial university as “Indian.” This time round, NSUI president Vinod Jakhar led protests in multiple cities, including Hyderabad and in Guwahati in Assam, where he been detained by police.

जब लाखों युवा सड़क पर हों, 22 लाख बच्चों का भविष्य दांव पर हो और PM चुप हो – तो सरकार जवाब देने नहीं, बचने में लगी है।

जब तक धर्मेंद्र प्रधान का इस्तीफा नहीं होता और NEET जैसे पेपर लीक रोकने के लिए foolproof सिस्टम नहीं बनता – हम रुकेंगे नहीं।pic.twitter.com/6KrhfUqDkL

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 24, 2026

This uproar over the NEET paper leak followed by the institutional scams within the National testing agency (NTA) also attracted parliamentary scrutiny. On May 21, National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Abhishek Singh was summoned to appear before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports to discuss the paper leak investigation and possible examination reforms. Committee members expressed serious concern regarding weaknesses in the examination process, including computer-based testing infrastructure, exam frequency, and institutional accountability. Officials informed the panel that a CBI probe is ongoing to identify vulnerabilities and reinforce the system. Committee Chairman and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh remarked that all Committee members were “very concerned” about the matters discussed.

Beyond street mobilisations, the Congress has mounted an aggressive media and social media campaign. Over weeks from mid-May 2026 onwards, party leaders have repeatedly raised the issue in press briefings, accusing the Modi government of failing to protect the interests of students and job aspirants. Leader of the Opposition (LOP), Rahul Gandhi has personally met students affected by the NEET paper leak and those who have raised concerns over the CBSE evaluation system. Senior leaders and party units are regularly posting on social media demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.

A question that deserves to be asked.

Over the last several weeks, NSUI has organised protest after protest on issues directly affecting students and young people, NEET paper leaks, examination irregularities, CBSE evaluation controversies, and accountability from the Education… pic.twitter.com/Z60EUtYyvz

— Maanmohan Singh Pahujaa (@msgpahujaa) June 6, 2026

Reuters  reported on May 16 itself that the Delhi Police detained Indian Youth Congress party supporters protesting against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan regarding the NEET paper leak and the statements made by him concerning students at near Teen Murti Circle, on May 16, 2026 in New Delhi, India. Holding posters, banners and party flags, IYC activists took out a protest march from Teen Murti Circle towards the education minister’s residence before they were stopped by police barricades. The protesters alleged that repeated paper leaks had shaken the confidence of students and exposed serious lapses in the country’s examination system.

Livemint, Millenium Post  also covered the May 16 protests reporting that several members, including IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib, were detained during the protest. The protesting Youth Congress alleged that the education system had “collapsed” under the BJP-led NDA government.

At a separate protest in Bengaluru, Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala criticised the government’s handling of the examination system, alleging administrative failures. The demonstration was attended by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other state leaders.

अब “परीक्षा पर चर्चा” बंद कर PM को “पेपर लीक पर चर्चा” करनी चाहिये ।

सच ये की देश में शिक्षा और परीक्षा को अब “एजुकेशन माफिया” चला रहा है ।

NEET परीक्षा लीक पर कल फ्रीडम पार्क, बेंगलुरु में युवा कांग्रेस द्वारा आयोजित रैली में श्री @siddaramaiah व श्री @UdayBhanuIYC के साथ pic.twitter.com/ulyjD0cElr

— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) May 22, 2026

IYC अध्यक्ष श्री @UdayBhanuIYC जी ने बेंगलुरु में NEET पेपर लीक के खिलाफ जोरदार विरोध प्रदर्शन का नेतृत्व किया।

युवा कांग्रेस ने छात्रों के भविष्य के साथ हुए इस खिलवाड़ के लिए धर्मेंद्र प्रधान को बर्खास्त करने और NTA को बैन करने की मांग उठाई।

बेंगलुरु pic.twitter.com/R6BfygWB6A

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 21, 2026

Though Congress has taken a lead, the controversy has drawn responses from other opposition parties as well. In West Bengal, leaders from the Trinamool Congress joined protests calling for a court-monitored investigation. Party MP Sagarika Ghose criticised the Centre’s response to the issue.

In Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav said the leak allegations pointed to what he described as an “organised network,” a claim the government has not commented on.

आइए #NEETPaperLeak के विरुद्ध #प्रतिरोध_मार्च का हिस्सा बनें!
आइए इस भाजपा की LEAK तंत्र का #पुतला_दहन करें और #StudentJustice के लिए लड़ें!

जागरूक नागरिक का फर्ज अदा करें, युवाओं के लिए खड़े होकर देश के भविष्य के साथ हो रहे भ्रष्टाचार का विरोध करें! pic.twitter.com/3q2nNCmloJ

— Rashtriya Janata Dal (@RJDforIndia) May 20, 2026

Meanwhile, youth organisations linked to regional parties, including the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, have also held demonstrations.

On May 24, Newsmill reported that members of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress organised a protest march towards Lok Bhavan in Chennai on May 24, condemning the alleged leak of the NEET UG 2026 examination paper and calling for the abolition of the national medical entrance test, which they claim favours affluent students.

Real Cockroaches in Tamil Nadu are fighting for the youth of this country with one clear demand, #SackPradhan

This is the kind of resistance India needs. Glimpses from IYC’s Rajbhavan March in Chennai.

Register as Cockroach: https://t.co/PPJUWeR7LX pic.twitter.com/nree8NlVYf

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 24, 2026

At that protest, the Indian Youth Congress National Secretary Joshua Gerard led the demonstration and criticised the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), citing repeated paper leaks and systemic inequality. He stated, “Every year, 22-24 lakhs youngsters write the NEET exam and in the last 12 years, more than 5 times that papers have been leaked. We strongly condemn this, and we demand that NEET exams be banned across India. It is against poor people…the tuition centres charge around Rs 1-2 lakh every year. NEET ensures that only rich people can become doctors in this country.” Gerard further warned of escalated protests if the examination is not banned, saying, “If it is not banned, we will organise gheraos across every assembly in India.”

The protest occurred amid widespread anger over the NEET UG 2026 paper leak. On the same day, May 24, the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi placed accused Shubham Khairnar in judicial custody until June 6, following his presentation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier that day.

May 13, May 21

The Hindu and The New Indian Express reported on protests by the IYC first on May 13 in Kalaburagi and thereafter in Bengaluru on May 21.

In the first protest, members of the Youth Congress Unit, condemned the irregularities in the NEET-UG examination, members of the Youth Congress unit staged a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Kalaburagi on Wednesday criticising the National Testing Agency (NTA) over the question paper leak and demanding its abolition. The protesters burnt tyres, displayed placards and raised slogans against the Union government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the conduct of national-level examinations.

Addressing the protesters, Kalaburagi District Youth Congress president Shakeel Ahmed Saradagi stated that repeated controversies surrounding the NEET-UG examination have undermined the credibility of the country’s examination system causing anxiety among lakhs of students aspiring to pursue medical education. Drawing attention to the scandal and controversy surrounding the 2024 NEET-UG examination and the fresh paper leak in 2026, he said that the paper leak has recurred for the second time in three years, accusing the NTA of repeatedly failing to conduct examinations transparently and securely, thereby compromising the interests of honest students.

Mr. Saradagi pointed out that such, repeated and systemic irregularities in centralised examinations are recurring because of the growing commercialisation of education and demanded that the Union government dissolve the NTA and establish a more accountable and transparent mechanism for conducting competitive examinations.

The protesters said that repeated paper leaks and examination irregularities have eroded public trust in the examination process and cautioned that such lapses can seriously undermine the faith of students in the country’s education system.

In Bengaluru, on May 21, twelve days later, a march to Lok Nayak Bhawan was organised. Addressing the media national general secretary Nigam Bhandary alleged that during the BJP-led NDA tenure at the Centre, the question paper was leaked 89 times, adding to the misery of the students. Speaking to the media before the protest, national general secretary Nigam Bhandary alleged that during the BJP-led NDA tenure at the Centre, the question paper was leaked 89 times, adding to the misery of the students. “The Centre has pushed the students into an inferno, as four students had committed suicide. The paper leaks have happened only in states ruled by the BJP,” he alleged.

May 29

Even on May 29, the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) organised demonstrations across several states, with youth leaders leading mashal juloos (torchlight marches) and protest rallies in multiple cities. IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib was present at a protest campaign from Goa on 29 May. The agitation then continued, and is still continuing in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Chandigarh and Punjab before concluding in Tamil Nadu on June 20. The NSUI has simultaneously been conducting protests and student outreach programmes across major cities and state capitals.

Live: Halla Bol – Mashal Morcha by Youth Congress in Pune. #SackPradhan https://t.co/yZFSAvhag1

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 31, 2026

हर ज़ोर-ज़ुल्म की टक्कर में…
संघर्ष हमारा नारा है @VinodJakharIN के नेतृत्व में @nsui सड़क पर भयंकर संघर्ष कर रही है,
Student Community के लिए पुलिस की लाठियां खा रही है !

गोदी मीडिया पुलिस से Permission मांगने नालों की Press Conference दिखा रही है !

NSUI ज़िंदाबाद pic.twitter.com/CdUlo30gD6

— Dr. Ragini Nayak (@NayakRagini) June 4, 2026

June 2

On June 2, Youth Congress protests took place outside Lok Bhavan in Ranchi, Jharkand over NEET-UG paper leak. The Youth Congress members congregated near Lok Bhavan and raised slogans against the BJP government at the Centre reported PTI.  Protesters alleged that irregularities in examinations have increased manifold under the BJP regime. After the NEET “paper leak”, mismanagement was found in the examination conducted by the CBSE, they claimed.

लीक प्रधान की बर्खास्तगी की मांग को लेकर झारखंड राजभवन के बाहर पहुंचे Indian Youth Cockroaches

जब तक प्रधान की बर्खास्तगी नही होती, तब तक ये सड़कें हम सूनी नही होने देंगे… pic.twitter.com/4luYSZ1r3B

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) June 2, 2026

“In the last 10 years, there have been 89 incidents of paper leaks in the country, and re-examinations took place 48 times. It is very shameful,” Jharkhand Youth Congress President Kumar Gaurav told reporters. He claimed that the paper leak affected students and many of them committed suicide, causing distress to their families.

“We demand justice for the families who lost their sons or daughters. But the BJP government remains silent on this. The Youth Congress demands the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan,” he said. Gaurav also announced that if their demand was not considered, they will intensify the protest and stage demonstrations outside the houses of BJP MPs and MLAs in Jharkhand.

झारखंड यूथ कांग्रेस ने NEET में धांधली और पेपर लीक के खिलाफ राजभवन के सामने जमकर नारेबाजी और विरोध प्रदर्शन किया.
देखिए रांची से संवाददाता सत्यजीत कुमार की ये रिपोर्ट

#JharkhandYouthCongress #NEET #NEETPaperLeak #YouthCongress #Ranchi #ReporterDiary | @satyajeetAT pic.twitter.com/hlBsiCj4Vk

— AajTak (@aajtak) June 2, 2026

The same day, June 2, a protest march, titled “Yuva Aakrosh Morcha,” was organised by Mumbai Youth Congress president Zeenat Shabrin and led by Youth Congress national president Uday Bhanu Chib, reported Mid-Day. This protest, in Dadar, Central Mumbai –starting from the symbolic Chaityabhoomi and culminating at the Shivaji Park was also against alleged paper leaks and examination irregularities in NEET and CBSE exams, demanding accountability and the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The march was halted midway and several protesters detained. Reported the Mid-day.

मुंबई की सड़कों पर आज देश का युवा न्याय मांग रहा था..
लेकिन पेपर लीक के जिम्मेदार धर्मेंद्र प्रधान क्या कर रहे हैं?
CBSE अधिकारियों के तबादले कर अपनी कुर्सी बचाने की कोशिश!

मोदी जी, एक मंत्री को बचाने के लिए आखिर कितने अधिकारियों की बलि दी जाएगी?

आज युवा कांग्रेस के ‘युवा… pic.twitter.com/V3nY3sdOg1

— Uday Bhanu Chib (@UdayBhanuIYC) June 2, 2026

Senior Congress leaders, including Congress Working Committee member and former minister Naseem Khan, MLA Bhai Jagtap, and AICC secretary Sachin Sawant, participated in the protest, along with hundreds of students, youth workers, and party activists.

June 4

Two days later, in another corner of the country, capital of the north-eastern state of Assam, Guwahati saw protests on the same issue. Assam Pradesh Youth Congress (APYC) president and MLA Zubair Anam Mazumder was allegedly manhandled by the police during a protest outside Rajiv Bhawan there over alleged “systemic failures”, “repeated paper leaks”, and “widespread mismanagement” plaguing major national examinations, including NEET and CBSE. The Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib joined APYC during the protest to demand justice and accountability for students. Here too, the protesters demanded the resignation of the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, alleging that paper leaks and scandals in crucial exams happened during his tenure like never before. The protest was led by Mazumder, and vice-presidents Rakesh Chakraborty, among others. “The immaturity and incompetence of the BJP government and the education minister have repeatedly exposed their lack of accountability towards students,” Chakraborty said. During the protest, Mazumder was allegedly manhandled by the police, while an effigy of Pradhan was burned. Chakravarty warned that if such irregularities and negligence towards students’ futures continue, the protests will intensify.
They alleged that certain coaching centres grew with the support of the BJP government, as well as intermediaries and organised groups, who were interfering in these exams, affecting the education of millions of students. The alleged relationship between the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the BJP was criticised for jeopardizing students’ futures.

The Economic Times reported on June 3 the announcements by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) has announced plans to intensify its nationwide agitation over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations and renewed its demand for the removal of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

पहले तस्वीरें देखिए, फिर मोदी मीडिया..

आज किसी चैनल ने दिखाया क्या..? pic.twitter.com/IMvIArjdvH

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) June 7, 2026

The youth wing of the Congress said on that date it would launch a fresh phase of protests across several states, including torchlight marches, student outreach programmes, demonstrations and gheraos, alleging that repeated examination controversies have undermined students’ faith in the education system. According to an official statement, IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib will visit multiple states to lead the campaign, which is scheduled to cover Maharashtra, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, among others. “The students of this country deserve jobs, justice and accountability. Instead, they have been given paper leaks, uncertainty and a broken examination system,” IYC in-charge Manish Sharma said in the statement. He said the organisation would continue its protests “until accountability is fixed and those responsible are removed”.

लीक प्रधान की बर्खास्तगी की मांग को लेकर झारखंड राजभवन के बाहर पहुंचे Indian Youth Cockroaches

जब तक प्रधान की बर्खास्तगी नही होती, तब तक ये सड़कें हम सूनी नही होने देंगे… pic.twitter.com/4luYSZ1r3B

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) June 2, 2026

Chib accused the government of failing to address concerns raised by students and alleged that examination leaks and irregularities had adversely affected the future of young aspirants. “We are now intensifying this movement across the country.

We will not stop until Prime Minister Narendra Modi is forced to sack Dharmendra Pradhan,” he said. The IYC said the next phase of its campaign would include torchlight marches, “Halla Bol” marches, student interaction programmes, district-level mobilisation drives and protests outside the residences of BJP leaders and chief ministers.

Against the NEET paper leak and injustice to students, Telangana Youth Congress held a unique protest inside a Metro train in Hyderabad.

Our demands:

◆ Resignation of Leak Minister Dharmendra Pradhan
◆ Dissolution of the corrupt National Testing Agency (NTA)
◆ JPC inquiry… pic.twitter.com/Sfq78gTmh7

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 19, 2026

The NEET paper leak is not just a scam, it is an attack on the future of India’s youth.

In Telangana , Youth Congress workers Protest against the repeated NEET paper leaks and demanded Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.
Ban NTA#BanNTA #SackDharmendraPradhan pic.twitter.com/K3TJ1CHCEz

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 16, 2026

Against the NEET paper leak and injustice to students, Telangana Youth Congress staged a unique protest inside the Hyderabad Metro.

Our demands:
◆ Resignation of “Leak Minister” Dharmendra Pradhan
◆ Dissolution of the corrupt NTA
◆ JPC inquiry into the NEET paper leak scam… pic.twitter.com/nr8yuFkjFA

— Indian Youth Congress (@IYC) May 19, 2026

The Union Education Ministry has previously maintained that measures have been taken to strengthen examination processes and improve transparency in recruitment and entrance tests. The latest announcement comes amid continuing political debate over the conduct of public examinations and recruitment tests, an issue that has triggered protests by opposition parties and student groups in recent years.

Meanwhile, independent media reported that IYC National Secretary and National Chairman of Social Media Manu Jain said the campaign represented “the anger, frustration and resistance of an entire generation”. “Through social media, AI-driven campaigns and ground mobilisation, we are building a national movement demanding jobs, justice and accountability,” he said. The organisation also launched a dedicated digital platform inviting young people to register themselves as part of the campaign. The IYC said it would continue raising issues related to unemployment, examination paper leaks and corruption “in every street, every campus and every corner of India”.

Related:

Abolish ‘discriminatory and imbalanced’ NEET exam: Justice A.K. Rajan Committee 2021

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India

NEET 2024 Row: Supreme Court cancels grace marks, orders re-test for affected students

Students, organisations protest as allegations against NEET examinations pile up

The post May-June 2026: Youth Congress nationwide protests challenge education system collapse under Modi government, media gives cold shoulder? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Gujjar Bakkerwal community is a recognised Scheduled Tribe (ST) community and has lived in forest areas for centuries, sustaining their livelihoods, while maintaining a close relationship with nature and forest resources. The implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006 in Jammu & Kashmir in 2021 recognized the legitimate rights of forest-dwelling tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers over their traditional lands, traditional migratory routes and habitats.
In view of these legal protections, any forceful eviction, intimidation, or use of violence and demolition of the houses of tribal families is a matter of serious concern. The Forest Rights Act 2006 was enacted to protect the rights of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD), and following its provisions is mandatory for all authorities.

The signatory organisations have demanded an immediate inquiry into the incident, repair and reconstruction of their demolished houses, protection of the affected families, and strict action against responsible officials regarding this grave violation of the rights of tribal communities.
The statement further says that “it is unacceptable that a sub divisional magistrate who carried out these demolition is faking ignorance of a parliament enacted law. The officer has been directed under FRA, a special Act of the Parliament in 2006 that the rights of the nomadic tribe should be protected. Government departments and authorities are supposed to help the forest communities to claim their rights. To the contrary, in Jammu, a government officer has uprooted dozens of families without any authorisation and violated the law of the land.”

AIWFP and others have demanded that Section 7 of the FR Act should be immediately invoked against the erring official and the person should be immediately punished for violation of this central Act. They have also urged the administration to ensure that no eviction takes place and that the rights guaranteed under the Forest Rights Act are fully implemented.

The AIUFWP is an Adivasi and Forest Dwellers Union and it has stated that they stand in solidarity with the Gujjar nomadic community and reaffirm our commitment to the protection of rights of forest dwelling communities, environmental justice, and the constitutional rights of all marginalised communities.

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The post Demolitions of homes of Gujjar Bakerwals in Jammu unconstitutional & violation of FRA 2006: AIUFWP appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In May 1925, state troops opened fire on protesting farmers in Neemuchana village of Alwar State in present-day Rajasthan. Five years later, in May 1930, another massacre unfolded at Tiladi Sera in the Rawain region of Tehri Garhwal. Though separated by geography, ecology, and language, the two movements reflected strikingly similar tensions over taxation, forests, customary rights, and the changing nature of native states in late colonial India.

The rulers were a retreating British colonial state.

Both movements emerged within princely states that colonial administrators categorised and later historiography continued to categorise as ‘Rajput States’.  Yet in both cases, the protesters themselves were overwhelmingly drawn from Rajput agrarian communities resisting policies imposed by those very states.

The Neemuchana Movement of Alwar State

In Rajasthan, the Rajput socio-political setup traversed through all three stages: a quasi-republican clan, the feudal state and the imperial power, sometimes all three existing simultaneously.

However, Professor Shail Mayaram notes that the most basic unit of the Rajput sociopolitical setup was a coparcenary bhaichara (brotherhood) which was always represented by the khamp (sub-lineage) headed by a chief. (Against History, Against State, p. 202)

The Alwar State was formed by the Naruka khamp of Kachhwahas in 1775. However, at Neemuchana Kisan Andolan in 1925, the Alwar King and the protesting farmers of Alwar belonged to the same Kachhwaha clan.

The protest itself was not unique in Rajasthan. Historian R. W. Stern documents the mobilisation of Jaipur State forces in the early 20th century, to subdue the Shekhawat clansmen of Sikar and arrest their chief Rao Raja Hardayal Singh of Sikar, a move that was met with fierce armed resistance from the Shekhawats, another Kachhwah subclan.

In the Essays on Rajputana, Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph observe that the States were confronted with a dual task. First, to weaken the political power of the Rajput chiefs and agrarian clansmen who, despite having played a central role in the formation of these states, were increasingly perceived as threats to centralised authority. Second, to strengthen the State’s centralised governments headed by the King and led by the educated Brahmin elite and the wealthy Mahajan class i.e. Bania and Khatri elites. Efforts to regulate and control farmers and clan-based agrarian structures frequently generated clashes between State police and agrarian clansmen, even compelling minor States to seek colonial intervention for suppression.

In the context of Alwar, Rajesh Kumar writes “The third land revenue settlement in Alwar was revised in 1923-24 by Pandit N.L. Tikko, raising the annual total demand to Rs. 29,39,112. Under this new settlement the land revenue was increased by 50 per cent and no concession was given to the Rajput cultivators, instead their Biswedari rights were forfeited.”(Proceedings of the Indian History Congress,Vol. 73 (2012); pp. 794-798)

In October 1924, the farmers began the first agitation to cancel the rates of land taxation. By early 1925, the Biswedars across Bansur, Thanagazi, Neemuchana, Bamanwas began collecting in huge numbers. Led by Govind Singh and Madho Singh of Neemuchana, they approached the Akhil Bhartiya Kshatriya Mahasabha and published their grievances in a pamphlet titled “Pukar”. Apart from reversion to previous rates, they demanded cessation of auction of banjad (infertile) land, cessation of blockage at roads connecting Alwar and Bansur, abolition of begar, permission to kill wild animals destroying crops.

In response, the Alwar government began confiscating grain stocks from the Biswedars, a move that deeply angered Rajput cultivators across the region. Many of these farmers were veterans of the First World War and began collecting weapons in anticipation of armed confrontation. They began organizing in Neemuchana. On May 14, 1925, Neemuchana was surrounded by State forces. As per official figures, 156 farmers were killed, while non-official figures claim much higher numbers. The public outrage that followed enabled the British to force Raja into exile, although the extent of accountability faced by the minister N L Tickoo remains far less clear.

Tiladi Movement of Tehri Garhwal State

The region of Uttarakhand — Garhwal and Kumaon— was ruled by three Rajput dynasties for thirteen centuries: the Katyuris of Khas origins who united the entire region in the 8th century, the migrant Panwar dynasty who replaced them in Garhwal and the Chand dynasty who replaced them in Kumaon. Unlike Rajasthan, both the Garhwal and Kumaon states were established through the gradual consolidation of numerous hill chieftaincies, forts, and clan-based polities.

After the Gurkha invasion and Anglo-Gurkha war, the Kumaon state was permanently annexed by the British and the Garhwal state was divided into British Garhwal and the smaller Tehri-Garhwal, which was retained by the Panwar dynasty.

When the Tehri ruler Kirti Shah died, his minor son Narendra Shah ascended the throne. By the late 1920s, Narendra Shah had largely withdrawn from day-to-day governance and was living comfortably in Europe, leaving the administration in the hands of his Diwan, Chakradhar Juyal. Acting in the name of an absentee and politically inexperienced ruler, the Juyal administration embarked upon an ambitious project to construct a new capital, while simultaneously facing growing pressure from the British owing to the rapid expansion of railway infrastructure in the Himalayan region.

To finance these projects and strengthen state control over resources, the administration introduced a series of deeply unpopular measures in the Rawain region. These included a grazing tax of ₹1 per head on sheep and goats, restrictions on grazing rights, fodder collection, and fuelwood harvesting, as well as bans on local forest-based festivals and customary rituals. Such policies directly undermined the subsistence economy and customary rights of local communities, fuelling widespread resentment against the Tehri State.

Author and Human rights activist Vidyabhushan Rawat notes, “Access to forests, fishing, and even keeping cattle became restricted or criminalized. Local people were prohibited from collecting minor forest produce, while British settlers such as Frederick Wilson enjoyed vast forest leases, exporting pine and chir timber to Britain”

Bhoon Singh and Heera Singh of Nagaon; Ludhar Singh, Jaman Singh, and Dalpati of Barkot; Dayaram of Kanseru , Dhoom Singh of Chakargaon started organizing the farmers of Rawain valley. On May 20, 1930, four farmer leaders were arrested and presented before the SDM (sub-divisional magistrate) Surendra Dutt. To protest the arrests, the farmers gathered in huge numbers prompting the Divisional Forest Officer Padamdutt Raturi to open fire, killing three farmers. However, the protesters managed to forcefully, free their leaders.

On May 30, 1930, the protesters gathered in huge numbers in Tiladi Sera on Yamuna bank. Diwan Juyal ordered Colonel Sundar Singh to fire. Sundar Singh refused and was suspended. Natthu Sajjwan was appointed the next army chief and ordered to fire, killing at least eighteen protesters (as per official), although local accounts put the fatality at 60-80. Around 194 farmers were arrested and sixteen more died in custody.

Conclusion

The histories of Neemuchana and Tiladi complicate, rather nuance, over-simplistic understandings of princely India by revealing deep internal tensions between the elite classes emerging within princely capitals — royalty, bureaucratic elites, and wealthy mercantile interests — and rural farming communities, both landed and landless, amid mounting colonial economic pressures. The histories of Neemuchana and Tiladi ultimately undermine the very premise of colonial labels such as the “Rajput State”.

They highlight the growing alienation of largely uneducated Rajput farmers and the increasing dominance of Brahmin and Khatri bureaucratic elites and Bania capitalist classes within the centres of princely power. Questions of taxation, forests, customary rights, and administrative centralisation frequently produced conflict between ruling establishments and the very communities in whose name political legitimacy was claimed..

Recovering, rather re-discovering, these movements is therefore essential not merely for regional history but for understanding the changing nature of power in late colonial India. They remind us that the politics of princely India cannot be understood through simplified dynastic or communal frameworks alone. Beneath the formal authority of princely cabinets existed complex struggles over land, resources, administration, and political representation — struggles that continue to remain insufficiently remembered in mainstream accounts of Indian history.

(The author is a mechanical engineer and an independent commentator on history and politics, with a particular focus on Rajasthan. His work explores the syncretic exchanges of India’s borderlands as well as contemporary debates on memory, identity and historiography; he can be contacted on adityakrishnadeora@gmail.com)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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The post Rethinking the ‘Rajput State’: The Neemuchana & Tiladi agrarian movements appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The verdict brings to a close one of the most significant constitutional controversies concerning electoral administration in recent years. While the judgment conclusively answers the question of whether the Election Commission possesses the authority to undertake a SIR, it leaves several substantive concerns unresolved. The challenge before the Court was never confined merely to the legality of electoral roll revision. Rather, it centred upon whether an exercise ostensibly intended to identify eligible electors had, in practice, transformed into a process requiring already registered voters to re-establish their entitlement to remain on the electoral roll, thereby blurring the distinction between verification of electoral eligibility and an unregulated (by law or authority) scrutiny of citizenship.

While upholding the ECI’s powers, the Division Bench simultaneously issued a series of directions intended to regulate the consequences of deletions arising from the SIR exercise. Yet it is within these directions themselves that some of the most difficult constitutional questions continue to persist

The sudden introduction and expansion of SIR and the deletion of crores of electors

One of the most consequential yet insufficiently examined aspects of the SIR exercise is its unprecedented scale and the magnitude of voter deletions that followed its implementation across multiple States. No previous exercise of its kind under Election Law or Practice has ever had such intent or result. It is there then that this verdict –by failing to engage in the crucial gaps and issues in implementation highlighted by the multifarious Petitioners—substantively falters.

The result is this: While the Supreme Court has, after rigorous hearings and several interim orders, ultimately upheld the constitutional validity of the SIR framework and accepted the Election Commission of India’s justification (that the exercise was intended to enhance the accuracy, completeness and integrity of electoral rolls). The moot question of what necessitated the adoption of an extraordinary and intensive verification mechanism when the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and the established system of continuous revision already provides for detailed procedures for the addition, correction and deletion of names from electoral rolls remains unanswered.

2023-2024, two years prior to the launch of the Bihar SIR in June 2025 were also marked by related issues that directly impact on the autonomy and functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI) a hitherto constitutional authority that enjoyed broad respect and acceptance. The present Regime’s overturning of a Supreme Court of India (SCI) final judgement on the need for wider choice and representation (including that of the Chief Justice of India-CJI) in selection of the CEC etc. is one such. The other is the huge accountability crisis in counting methods and transparency by the ECI around the Lok Sabha Polls of 2024, reports around which may be read here and here. Given the outcry by citizens groups and Opposition parties around “Vote Chori” and manipulation during and post 2024 LS polls (including the Haryana, Maharashtra state elections), the ECI even arbitrarily decided to amend its own Rules in ensuring availability of the CCTV footage during electors voting after the scheduled time, storage and counting to citizens and candidates.

The SIR 2-25-2026 was therefore conducted under a shroud of allegations and scrutiny. Thereafter follows the May 27 judgement of the apex court that in a sense obliterates these background developments.

The judgment recognises the Commission’s constitutional authority under Article 324 and Section 21(3) of the Act, yet neither the Court nor the Commission appears to have fully explained why existing statutory mechanisms were considered inadequate or incapable of addressing concerns relating to migration, duplication, deaths or ineligible entries. The absence of such justification becomes particularly significant when the practical outcome of the exercise has been the near arbitrary removal/deletion of crores of electors which according to some reports reach around 5.18 crore (51.8 million!!) electors across thirteen states union territories. Though the Election Commission has uploaded on its web page, the receipt and the digitalisation of enumeration forms  of each state frequently yet it skipped the uploading of the draft rolls , final rolls and the deletions on the same site. Consequently, one has to rely on round about figures of state wise deletions for reference from various unconfirmed sources and the same are depicted in the table below:

Impact of SIR across the States

The Bihar exercise, initiated through the Election Commission’s notification dated June 24, 2025, became the foundation upon which the SIR model was subsequently replicated in twelve other States and Union Territories. According to the available figures, the cumulative impact of these exercises resulted in the deletion of approximately 5.18 crore names from electoral rolls covering an electorate of nearly 60 crore electors.

The scale of these deletions was unprecedented in the history of electoral roll revision in India. Uttar Pradesh alone witnessed deletions exceeding 2.05 crore electors, while West Bengal recorded deletions of approximately 83.86 lakhs: rather 85.12 lakh names from as much as total electors of Bengal by ECI are recorded at 6.81 crore names. Tamil Nadu saw nearly 74 lakh deletions form the original electorate at the start of the SIR. Deletions are high in Gujrat and UP also.  Even smaller jurisdictions such as Goa, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep recorded deletions running into significant proportions of their total electorate.

These figures raise an important constitutional question: When a bureaucratic exercise hurriedly undertaken in the name of electoral ‘purification’ results in the such mass exclusion of more than five crore (50 million) registered voters, should not the burden of transparency and accountability correspondingly become more exacting and higher?

Bihar as the testing ground of SIR

The Bihar experience illustrates the complexity of this concern. Before the commencement of the SIR exercise, Bihar’s electoral roll consisted of approximately 7.89 crore registered electors. Following the intensive revision process, the draft electoral roll published by the Election Commission contained only 7.24 crore electors. This meant that nearly 65 lakh individuals who had previously appeared on the electoral roll were absent from the draft roll. The Commission attributed a substantial portion of this reduction to the non-submission or non-collection of Enumeration Forms during the verification process. However, the omission of such a large number of previously enrolled electors at the draft stage immediately generated concerns regarding the practical consequences of a documentation-based verification exercise conducted within compressed timelines and under challenging administrative conditions.

The Commission subsequently issued its final press release on September 30, 2025 announcing the completion of the Bihar SIR. According to the data disclosed therein, 3.66 lakh names were permanently deleted after detailed statutory verification, while 21.53 lakh eligible electors were either restored or added through Form-6 applications and the claims-and-objections process. As a result, the final electoral roll stood at approximately 7.42 crore electors. At first glance, the Commission presented these figures as evidence of a successful correction mechanism that enabled genuine electors to re-enter the electoral database. However, a closer examination of the numbers available from various sources reveals a significant discrepancy.

The pre-SIR electoral roll contained approximately 7.89 crore electors, whereas the finalised roll contained 7.42 crore electors. This represents a net reduction of approximately 47 lakh electors.

This discrepancy is not merely statistical. It goes to the heart of the transparency and accountability concerns that surrounded the SIR exercise from the beginning. Electoral rolls are the foundational instruments through which the constitutional guarantee of universal adult suffrage under Article 326 is operationalised. Consequently, when millions of names disappear from electoral rolls during a revision exercise, a clear and comprehensive explanation becomes essential. The available public figures explain certain categories of additions and deletions, but they do not adequately account for the entire difference between the pre-revision and post-revision electorate. In the absence of a detailed category-wise reconciliation identifying how and why the remaining electors ceased to form part of the final database, the figures disclosed by the Commission appear incomplete and internally inconsistent.

The issue becomes even more significant because the revised Bihar electoral roll was not merely a provisional administrative exercise. It became the basis for the conduct of the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections held in November 2025, with the results declared on November 14, 2025. Specifically put, is a state election, where as many as 47 lakh (4.7 million) voters did not cast their franchise because they were not given a chance to prove their electoral status, legitimate in the eyes of the Law, Courts and Constitution?

Consequently, the constitutional questions raised before the Supreme Court were not being examined in an abstract or prospective setting; they concerned an electoral framework that had already been implemented and utilised for a completed democratic exercise. The Court’s eventual decision therefore validated not merely the legal authority to undertake a SIR but also the inefficient and partisan exercise, multiple breaches of the law of the land on the matter concerned, with practical consequences flowing from that exercise.

Yet the larger constitutional concern remains unresolved. The Election Commission consistently maintained that the purpose of the SIR was to ensure that every eligible citizen was included in the electoral roll while simultaneously removing ineligible, duplicate, shifted or deceased voters. However, the public discourse and the statistical outcomes reveal that the exercise was perceived primarily through the lens of deletion rather than inclusion. The overwhelming –and heavily partisan and unaccountable–administrative focus appeared to be directed towards verifying existing entries and identifying names for exclusion. There was comparatively less emphasis on institutional mechanisms designed to assist vulnerable citizens in retaining their electoral status or navigating documentation requirements. For many petitioners and civil society organisations, the concern was not merely the removal of ineligible names but the possibility that genuine electors could be excluded because of absence of access–procedural, technical or documentation-related difficulties. As such the exercise was the reversion of the implementation of both the letter and spirit of election law, the principle behind which is inclusion. SIR 2025-2026 has made this into an exercise of exclusion: disempowering the marginalised in the name of purifying the rolls.

It is this broader context that explains why the challenge to the Bihar SIR generated such intense public debate. The controversy was not only confined to the Election Commission’s authority to revise electoral rolls. Rather, it concerned the manner in which that authority was exercised, the scale of deletions that followed, the burden imposed upon existing electors to re-establish their eligibility, and the absence of complete public clarity regarding the final numerical outcomes.

Even after the Supreme Court’s judgment of May 27 upholding the legality of the SIR framework, these factual and statistical questions remain largely unanswered. The Court resolved the narrow, legal issue of constitutional powers; it did not fully address the concerns arising from the moral, constitutional and real-life consequences of an exercise that ultimately resulted in the deletion of more than 5.18 crore (51.8 million) electors across the country and left significant discrepancies in the publicly available electoral data. In a democracy founded upon universal adult franchise, those questions are not peripheral. They fundamentally point to the relationship between electoral integrity and electoral inclusion, the right to Universal Adult Franchise, integral to a living, participatory Democracy. On grounds of ‘prevention of illegible voters/voting’, the fundamental and key constitutional question of not ever disallowing any eligible voter from his Right to Vote has been consciously blurred if not obliterated.

Contradictory position on citizenship and deleted voters

One of the most significant aspects of the judgment lies in the Court’s treatment of citizenship-related scrutiny undertaken during the SIR exercise.

In paragraph 186(f) of the judgement, the Court held that the Election Commission is empowered to undertake only a limited enquiry into citizenship for the purpose of satisfying itself regarding eligibility for inclusion in the electoral roll. The Court expressly clarified that such an enquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship in the strict legal sense and that any action taken pursuant to such an exercise is confined exclusively to electoral consequences. According to the Court, the consequence of such a determination is correspondingly limited. It affects an individual’s entitlement to remain on the electoral roll and consequently their participation in the electoral process, but it does not divest the individual of citizenship nor foreclose adjudication by the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Court has, in its own wisdom, through a misconceived verdict, now evolved two types of citizenship one for the qualification of being an elector and another for all purposes. The Court has also not answered the natural and logical question which is, how can a person, adjudged as not a citizen for being elector, be a citizen for all other purposes?!! Further, the Court has not answered the question as to which law allows any executive authority to divest of the rights of a citizen without any final adjudication of the issue. It has opened a Pandora’s Box.

However, the subsequent directions appear to create a degree of tension with this formulation.

In paragraph 186 (g), the Court directed that where the Commission is not satisfied that a person fulfils the statutory conditions for inclusion in the electoral roll, it would be incumbent upon the Commission to refer such an individual to the competent authority within the Central Government for adjudication in accordance with law. The Court further clarified that any deletion effected on this ground shall remain subject to the outcome of such adjudication. Strange without final adjudication as to whether one is a citizen or not the court has given a right to the executive to snatch the supreme democratic right—the right to vote– of a person.

If this is genuinely so, and the Commission possesses neither the authority nor the required expertise/wherewithal to determine citizenship, can or should elections be conducted before final and thorough adjudication of all those excluded, given the hastily conducted SIR that excludes staggering numbers of Voters/Electors?

Without linking the final adjudication process under a badly conducted SIR to actual future conduct of elections, the Court has lent its approval to a basically incomplete and flawed process. Besides, the practical consequence of this direction is significant. Although the Court repeatedly emphasises that the Commission itself does not determine citizenship, the Commission’s dissatisfaction regarding a person’s eligibility may nevertheless become the trigger for a formal citizenship adjudication before another authority. Consequently, while the Election Commission may not be exercising citizenship jurisdiction in the strict legal sense, its findings can initiate a process that ultimately culminates in a determination of citizenship status. Every Indian citizen has a right to be an elector/voter, but the court has not laid down any parameters and duties for the Commission to exercise (process to follow) to adjudge some is not a citizen: the court has made grant or seizure of Indian citizenship by the ECI into an arbitrary act and one that can be exercised for a particular purpose at the whims of the executive. The court has not even examined the stark arbitrariness of the documents enlisted by the commission without sanction of the legislature for the purpose of determination. As per existing law, the enumerated documents (for the SIR) are not and cannot be said to be the proof of citizenship by any means. At most, or best, only the Passport issued by Indian Government can be said to pass this test. The Court has failed to appreciate that the Commission is not equipped in any manner to carry out the inquiry required for determination of citizenship even for a limited purpose (determining a voter).

The issue becomes even more pronounced in paragraph 186(h), where the Court specifically directed that all cases involving persons whose names had been deleted from the 2003 electoral roll on the basis of the Commission’s opinion that they were not citizens must be referred within four weeks to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The competent authority was directed to decide such matters after providing notice and an opportunity of hearing and, preferably, before the next Parliamentary, Assembly or Local Body election, whichever occurs earlier.

The Court further directed that if the competent authority ultimately concludes that the deleted individuals are citizens, their names shall be restored to the electoral roll. When and if that happens, what of the Denied Right to Vote in all previous elections until the process is completed/conducted?

Significantly, however, the judgment remains silent on the converse situation.

The directions clearly prescribe the consequences where the competent authority determines that the individual is a citizen. Restoration to the electoral roll follows as a matter of course. However, the judgment does not elaborate upon the legal consequences that would follow if the competent authority were to hold that the individual is not a citizen. The judgment neither identifies the statutory mechanism governing such a situation nor discusses the broader legal implications arising from such a finding.

The judgment therefore resolves the question of institutional competence but leaves unresolved the apprehension reflected in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) notification dated June 24, 2025. The notification provides that where the Election Registration Officer (ERO) or Assistant Election Registration Officer (AERO) entertains doubts regarding the eligibility of a proposed elector—whether due to non-submission of requisite documents or otherwise—a suo motu inquiry may be initiated, followed by the issuance of notice requiring the individual to show cause as to why his or her name should not be deleted from the electoral roll. Upon completion of field verification and examination of documentary material, the ERO/AERO is empowered to decide upon inclusion in the final electoral roll and is required to pass a reasoned speaking order in each case. Significantly, the notification further directs EROs to refer cases involving suspected foreign nationals to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, while authorising AEROs to independently exercise the powers of the ERO under Section 13C(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Consequently, although the Court has affirmed that the Election Commission’s enquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship, concerns persist regarding the practical operation of a framework in which electoral scrutiny may, in certain cases, culminate in processes closely connected with questions of citizenship status.

Lal Babu Hussein and the presumption of validity of existing electoral registration

A central plank of the challenge to the SIR exercise was the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Lal Babu Hussein and Others v. Electoral Registration Officer, (1995) 3 SCC 100. In Lal Babu Hussein, the Court was dealing with disputes relating to electoral registration in which questions of citizenship directly arose. Recognising the serious consequences associated with exclusion from electoral rolls, the Court laid considerable emphasis on procedural fairness, adherence to natural justice and independent application of mind by electoral authorities.

The Court directed that the officer conducting the enquiry must entertain all forms of evidence, documentary or otherwise, that the affected person seeks to produce. The affected individual must be afforded a meaningful opportunity to rebut any material relied upon against them. The enquiry was characterised as quasi-judicial in nature, requiring fairness, objectivity and reasoned decision-making. The Court further directed that election authorities must consider the provisions of the Constitution, the Citizenship Act and all related legal provisions before arriving at a conclusion. It also quashed restrictions imposed by the Election Commission on the consideration of certain documents and emphasised that evidentiary value must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Most importantly, the Court underscored that authorities must conduct themselves in a manner consistent with natural justice and free from preconceived notions.

The significance of Lal Babu Hussein lies not merely in its procedural safeguards but in its recognition that inclusion in an electoral roll carries a presumption of validity. The petitioners challenging the Bihar SIR relied heavily upon this principle. Their contention was that once a citizen has already been included in the electoral roll through a legally recognised process, the burden should not casually shift onto that individual to once again establish eligibility through a fresh and intensive verification exercise.

The Supreme Court, however, distinguished Lal Babu Hussein from the Bihar SIR.

According to the Court, Lal Babu Hussein was decided in the context of individual adjudicatory proceedings concerning specific disputes, whereas the Bihar SIR constituted a systemic and inquisitorial exercise undertaken across the electorate in furtherance of the Commission’s constitutional mandate. Consequently, the Court held that while inclusion in the electoral roll undoubtedly gives rise to a presumption of validity, such presumption remains rebuttable and cannot operate as a blanket embargo upon the Commission’s authority to undertake a Special Intensive Revision.

This distinction forms a critical component of the judgment. However, it simultaneously raises a broader constitutional question. If inclusion in an electoral roll generates a presumption of validity, what practical protection does that presumption provide when millions of electors are subjected to fresh verification through a statewide exercise? While the Court recognises the existence of the presumption, the judgment substantially limits its practical effect by permitting large-scale re-examination of already enrolled electors.

Citizenship by presumption, not by documents: the unresolved core of the SIR debate

One of the most significant yet insufficiently examined aspects of the Bihar SIR litigation concerns the nature of citizenship verification itself. Throughout the proceedings, the Election Commission justified the exercise on the ground that electoral rolls must contain only eligible citizens, while the Supreme Court ultimately held that the Commission is empowered to undertake a limited enquiry into citizenship for electoral purposes.

However, the larger difficulty lies in the fact that Indian citizenship law does not prescribe a single, universally accepted document that conclusively establishes citizenship in every circumstance. Unlike identity verification, which may be undertaken through documents such as Aadhaar, citizenship is ordinarily established through a combination of statutory presumptions, factual circumstances, birth records, lineage, residence histories and legal provisions contained in the Citizenship Act, 1955. Consequently, the entire SIR exercise appears to have proceeded on a presumption of citizenship rather than on the basis of any definitive citizenship document recognised uniformly by the competent authority that is the Home Ministry or any document prescribed by any law made under the Citizenship Act. Under these circumstances, the selection or enumeration of such documents becomes not only arbitrary but also whimsical and discriminatory, a procedure that can lead to anarchy.

This becomes evident from the categories of documents accepted during the SIR process. Aadhaar, for instance, is fundamentally a document of identity and residence; it is not a proof of citizenship. Similarly, documents such as ration cards, bank passbooks, school certificates, board examination certificates, property records or welfare-related documents may establish the existence, residence or identity of an individual during a particular period, but none of them independently constitute proof of Indian citizenship. Even birth certificates, which are often treated as foundational documents, do not by themselves establish citizenship in every case, particularly because citizenship by birth in India is governed by different statutory conditions depending upon the date of birth and the status of parents under the Citizenship Act. In that sense, the controversy surrounding SIR was never merely about the production of documents but it was about the legal assumption that citizenship could be inferred through a documentation framework despite the absence of any statutory provision prescribing a definitive citizenship document.

A departure from established electoral practice

The controversy is further accentuated by the fact that the SIR exercise marked a substantial departure from the traditional process of electoral roll maintenance. Historically, electoral registration in India has operated on the basis that inclusion in an existing electoral roll carries a presumption of validity unless specific grounds for deletion are established through the procedure prescribed under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The Supreme Court itself acknowledged this principle by recognising that inclusion in the electoral roll creates a presumption of validity, though one that is rebuttable. Yet the SIR framework effectively required millions of already enrolled electors to re-establish their eligibility through fresh documentation and verification procedures.

The contrast with earlier exercises becomes particularly relevant in light of the experience of Assam. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam was conducted under a unique statutory and historical framework, involving specific legacy documents, electoral roll references dating back to 1951 and a legal architecture shaped by the Assam Accord. The documents accepted in the NRC process were tailored to that specific context. By contrast, the Bihar SIR exercise adopted a different framework altogether, while simultaneously rejecting reliance upon certain forms of prior electoral inclusion that had historically been treated as relevant indicators of eligibility.

Foreigners’ tribunals and the limits of analogy

Pertinently, comparisons were frequently drawn with the Foreigners Tribunals functioning in Assam. However, such analogies are not straightforward. The Foreigners Tribunal system emerged from a distinct historical and statutory context linked to immigration concerns in Assam and derives authority from specialised legal provisions applicable in that region. There is presently no equivalent nationwide mechanism automatically applicable to citizenship disputes arising from electoral revision exercises in other States.

Consequently, while the Court’s directions contemplate referral to a competent authority, they do not identify whether any existing institutional structure is capable of handling such disputes on a large scale. Nor do they explain how citizenship determinations are expected to be completed within the timeframe contemplated by paragraph 186(h), particularly when citizenship questions often involve complex inquiries into birth, descent, migration, residence and statutory status extending across decades.

The missing context behind the Bihar SIR

Any assessment of the Supreme Court’s verdict must necessarily be situated within the broader actual, on-ground, reality/factual context in which the Bihar SIR was conceived and implemented. According to the Commission, the exercise was intended to ensure that every eligible citizen was enrolled, no ineligible voter remained on the rolls and entries relating to deceased, shifted or duplicate electors were removed.

The notification stated that the Commission would scrupulously adhere to the constitutional and statutory framework governing electoral eligibility, particularly Article 326 of the Constitution and Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Article 326 guarantees elections based upon adult suffrage, while Section 16 identifies circumstances under which an individual may be disqualified from registration as an elector, including non-citizenship, unsoundness of mind and disqualification arising from electoral offences.

The Commission invoked Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act as the source of its authority. It further stated that the exercise represented the first intensive revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls since 2003 and was necessary to preserve the integrity of electoral rolls in light of rapid urbanisation, migration, demographic changes, underreporting of deaths and concerns regarding the presence of foreign nationals.

To implement the exercise, Booth Level Officers were directed to conduct extensive house-to-house verification. Existing electors were required to complete Enumeration Forms and provide supporting documents. Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers were entrusted with processing claims and objections before final publication of the revised rolls.

Although the stated objective was to ensure inclusion of all eligible voters, the implementation of the exercise generated widespread concerns from civil society organisations, political parties and election law scholars. Critics questioned the compressed timeline, the documentary requirements and the practical feasibility of requiring millions of electors to complete the process within a matter of weeks. These concerns ultimately formed the foundation of the constitutional challenge that reached the Supreme Court.

The significance of this background cannot be understated. The legal controversy surrounding the Bihar SIR did not arise merely because a revision of electoral rolls was undertaken. It arose because the revision was conducted through an extraordinary and unprecedented methodology that fundamentally altered the manner in which existing electors were required to establish their continued presence on the electoral roll.

Finally, to conclude, the factual position is this: the Commission by conducting such an ill-conceived SIR is acting in breach of the Representation of Peoples Act 1950, 1951, the Registration of Electors Rules 1960, the established practices of the past seven decades; actions that have converted the ongoing exercise into coercive and arbitrary act that is instrumental in killing the fundamentals of our democracy.

The full judgement dated May 27, 2026 can be read here.

Related

SC greenlights SIR, upholds ECI’s power to revise electoral rolls

“Inside the SIR”: Booklet flags ‘mechanical disenfranchisement’ in electoral roll revision

VFD’s rebuttal of the Fadnavis’ Claims on Electoral Manipulation Allegations

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