For generations, this has been the lifeline of Pani Sol.

Today, fear travels those roads alongside them.

On 9 June, one of the village’s hawkers, 50-year-old Akbar Ali Mondal, was allegedly beaten to death in Purulia district while earning a living. Yet the arrest of the accused has done little to calm nerves in Pani Sol, where thousands of families depend on hawking for survival.

A week after the killing, the village remains engulfed in anxiety. Men leave for work with apprehension. Families wait anxiously for phone calls. Conversations in tea stalls, village shops and courtyards inevitably return to the same unsettling question: could the next victim be one of us?

Pani Sol, located under Onda Police Station in Bankura district, is one of the largest villages in the region. Home to nearly 80,000 to 90,000 residents, around 90 per cent of whom are Muslims, the settlement is known across neighbouring districts as a village of hawkers, with generations of families relying on itinerant trade for their livelihood.

According to local residents, nearly seventy to eighty per cent of the village’s young men earn their livelihood through itinerant trading. Every day, they travel long distances carrying household goods, relying on personal relationships, trust and repeat customers to earn a living. Few families have agricultural land. Even fewer have access to stable salaried employment.

Akbar Ali Mondal was one of these workers.

How Akbar Ali’s Final Journey Shook a Village of Hawkers

Akbar worked in areas near the Purulia-Jharkhand border alongside his 24-year-old son, Zulfikar Ali. Although father and son operated in different localities, they followed the same routine. They would leave early in the morning and return home after a day of selling goods door to door.

On 9 June, they set out as usual.

By midday, Zulfikar received a phone call informing him that his father had fallen ill and had been taken to hospital. Rushing there, he found not an injured man awaiting treatment but the lifeless body of his father.

Showing photographs of the deceased, Zulfikar struggled to control his emotions.

“I still cannot understand why such brutality was inflicted upon him,” he said.

Akbar Ali Mondal’s killing has left behind more than grief. Akbar’s widow and young daughter depended heavily on his earnings. The family’s modest mud house stands as a reminder of how fragile their economic existence had always been. Now the responsibility of supporting the household rests entirely on Zulfikar.

Fear Spreads Through Bengal’s Village of Muslim Hawkers

While Akbar’s family mourns a personal loss, many residents of Pani Sol fear the killing signals something larger.

Many villagers believe Akbar Ali Mondal’s killing has transformed a livelihood concern into a question of survival. Residents allege that harassment of Muslim hawkers has increased in recent years in some areas where they work. Several claim that traders are sometimes subjected to intimidation and communal abuse.

Zulfikar alleged that Muslim hawkers were occasionally forced to chant religious slogans and threatened with exclusion from local markets and neighbourhoods.

“We have been working under fear for a long time,” he said. “Now that fear has become even greater.”

Whether or not all such allegations are established through official investigations, the perception of insecurity is now widespread across the village. In many homes, parents worry every time their sons leave for work.

The impact on the village economy is already visible. Several hawkers working in distant areas have reportedly returned home after Akbar Ali Mondal’s killing. Others say they are reconsidering where they travel and whether they can continue in the profession at all.

The dilemma is stark: stay home and face hunger, or continue working while fearing for one’s safety.

Why Pani Sol’s Economy Depends on Thousands of Hawkers

Beyond the killing, the deeper tragedy lies in the economic reality of Pani Sol.

A drive through the village reveals a settlement bustling with human activity but struggling with limited opportunities. Bicycles loaded with merchandise are as common here as tractors are in farming villages.

The village economy revolves around hawking because alternative employment opportunities scarcely exist.

Despite its large population, the village has only two high schools and fewer than ten primary schools. Residents complain of teacher shortages and poor educational infrastructure. Extreme poverty forces many children to abandon their studies before completing secondary education.

According to villagers, only a handful of residents have secured government jobs. The number of graduates in a population approaching one lakh is astonishingly small.

The consequence is visible everywhere. Each generation enters the same occupation as the previous one. Sons become hawkers because their fathers were hawkers.

Hawking is not merely a source of income in Pani Sol; it is the backbone of the village economy.

That is why Akbar Ali Mondal’s death has generated fear far beyond his immediate family.

Growing Fear After Attacks on Travelling Muslim Traders

Residents also recalled earlier incidents involving hawkers from the village. One local resident cited an alleged stabbing attack on another trader from Pani Sol a few months ago near Bankura town.

Whether isolated or part of a broader pattern, such incidents have reinforced feelings of vulnerability among villagers.

“Hawking once meant hardship,” said an elderly resident. “Now it also means fear.”

Rights Groups Step In as Family Seeks Justice and Support

Akbar Ali Mondal’s killing has attracted the attention of rights organisations and community groups.

A team from the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), led by social activist Omar Owais, visited the family and assured them of legal assistance. Representatives of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind also met villagers and expressed concern over both the killing and the broader economic insecurity facing the community.

According to Owais, the family is living under tremendous psychological pressure and requires legal support to pursue the case, particularly because the crime occurred around 90 kilometres away in Purulia district.

For a family already struggling financially, travelling repeatedly to another district to follow legal proceedings presents a major burden.

“How Are We Supposed to Live?”

The question echoing across Pani Sol today is not only who killed Akbar Ali Mondal, but what comes next.

Akbar’s elder brother, Noor Mohammad Mondal, who survives by selling poultry, summed up the village’s predicament.

“Many hawkers are returning home because they are frightened,” he said. “But there is no other work here. Tell me, how are we supposed to survive?”

His question captures the anxiety of an entire village.

For decades, the roads of Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar provided a livelihood for Pani Sol’s residents. Today, those same roads have become a source of uncertainty.

As the investigation into Akbar Ali Mondal’s killing continues, thousands of hawkers from this village will once again leave home in search of customers. They will carry their goods as they always have.

But many will now carry something else as well: the fear that, for Muslim hawkers from Pani Sol, earning a living may itself have become dangerous.

Courtesy: https://enewsroom.in

The post After Akbar Ali Mondal’s Killing, Pani Sol’s Hawkers Ask: How Will We Survive? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The statement states that the signatories have followed with concern Khurram Parvez’s detention on baseless charges since November 2021, and his continued detention without trial in Delhi’s Rohini Jail. By his birthday, June 18, he will have spent 1,670 days in prison.

The signatories have also reminded the Indian authorities that three years ago, in June 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) determined that Khurram Parvez’s detention was arbitrary and called on the Indian authorities to release him. They have expressed concern that the Indian government, despite pledging to participate meaningfully with UN mechanisms as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, has not engaged with the UNWGAD in relation to Khurram’s detention.

Categorising his detention and judicial harassment is happening in a context of longstanding, ongoing grave violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Jammu & Kashmir, the signatories have also condemned the Indian authorities’ widespread and normalised use of repressive counter-terrorism laws, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, under which Khurram Parvez is being targeted, to silence human rights defenders and dissenting voices.

The statement had urged the government of India to immediately and unconditionally release Khurram Parvez. It also calls on India’s international partners to publicly denounce Khurram Parvez’s detention and to demand that their Indian counterparts release him immediately and unconditionally. The solidarity with Khurram Parvez will continue.

Background

On June 10, 2026, in one of the cases that Parvez is facing, the Delhi High Court granted bail to Kashmiri rights defender Khurram Parvez after 4½ years in jail. Though significant, the ruling, however, did not immediately secure Parvez’s freedom. He is in continued judicial 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 June 10 ruling however is still key: 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.

SabrangIndia had reported extensively on this ruling and the article may be read here.

The signature campaign cum statement released on June 19, the day after Khurram Parvez’s 49^th birthday had the following signatories:

Signed by:

Organisations:

1. ACAT-France
2. Activate Rights
3. Al-Haq
4. Amnesty International
5. Armanshahr / OPEN ASIA
6. Asia Alliance Against Torture (A3T)
7. Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates (AHRLA)
8. Asia Justice and Rights
9. Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
10. Asian Human Rights Commission
11. Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (APDHE)
12. Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM)
13. Association for Democracy in the Maldives (ADM)
14. Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM)
15. Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la défense des droits de l’homme (ATPDH)
16. Bridging for Sustainable Development (BSD)
17. Bytes For All, Pakistan
18. Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR)
19. Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC)
20. CENIDH
21. Center for Civil Liberties
22. Center for Prisoners’ Rights
23. Centro de Investigación y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (CIPRODEH)
24. Centro de Políticas Públicas y Derechos Humanos (Perú EQUIDAD)
25. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
26. Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN)
27. Collectif de Sauvegarde de la Ligue Algérienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme
28. Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS)
29. Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) (Northern ireland)
30. Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC)
31. Defence of Human Rights Pakistan
32. DITSHWANELO – The Botswana Centre for Human Rights
33. Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO)
34. Forum Against Repression, Telangana
35. FORUM-ASIA
36. Foundation Day of the Endangered Lawyer
37. Front Line Defenders (FLD)
38. Hindus for Human Rights
39. Hivos
40. Human Rights Association (IHD)
41. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)
42. Human Rights Defenders’ Alert – India (HRDA)
43. Human Rights Forum
44. Human Rights Online Philippines (HRonlinePH)
45. Human Rights Watch
46. IMPARSIAL, the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor
47. India Labour Solidarity (UK)
48. Indian Alliance Paris (IAP)
49. Indian Social Action Forum
50. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
51. International Legal Initiative Public Foundation
52. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
53. International Solidarity with Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India)
54. Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
55. Justiça Global
56. Karapatan
57. Kashmir Law and Justice Project
58. Kazakhstan International Bureau for human rights
59. Kirithavar Vazhvurimai Iyakkam (Christian Rights Forum – India)
60. Lawyers for Human Rights (South Africa)
61. League for Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI)
62. Liga Voor Mensenrechten
63. Liga voor de Rechten van de Mens
64. Ligue Burundaise des droits de l’homme Iteka
65. Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH – France)
66. Ligue Djiboutienne des Droits Humain (LDDH)
67. Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA)
68. Maldivian Democracy Network (MDN)
69. National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)
70. Nonviolence International
71. Odhikar
72. Organisation Marocaine des droits humains (OMDH)
73. People’s Watch
74. Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)
75. Progressive Voice (PV)
76. Project South
77. Public Association “Dignity”
78. Public Committee against Torture in Israel
79. Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
80. Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO)
81. Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA)
82. South Asia Justice Campaign
83. South Asia Solidarity Group
84. South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR)
85. SUARAM
86. Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP)
87. The Advocates for Human Rights
88. The Canadian BDS Coalition and International BDS Allies
89. The Sudanese Human Rights Monitor (SHRM)
90. Think Centre
91. University of Madras, Criminology Students
92. World Organization against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Individuals:

1. Kulandaisamy
2. Ahmed Aloui
3. Aissa Rahmoune
4. Alexis Deswaef (President of FIDH)
5. Allarassem Yemingar
6. Angana Chatterji
7. Appandairaj Jain
8. Asiya Arif
9. Ather Zia
10. Bela Bhatia
11. Bernadette Hamenyimana
12. Cecille Baello (Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND))
13. Cedric Prakash
14. Clifton D’ Rozario
15. David Kaye (former UN Special Rapporteur)
16. Dean Accardi
17. Dhayanithi Raj Jeganathan
18. Diana Alzeer
19. Dr Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan
20. Frazer Mascarenhas
21. Emma Brännlund (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Mid Sweden University)
22. Farhatullah Babar
23. Fatima Babu
24. Fernand de Varennes (former UN Special Rapporteur)
25. Fionnuala Ni Aolain (former UN Special Rapporteur)
26. Alex Maria Chelliah (OFM Cap)
27. Freny Manecksha
28. Giulia Ganovelli
29. Hafidha Chekir
30. Haley Duschinski
31. Hariprasath V
32. Harsh Mander
33. Immanuel Kalaiselvan
34. Johanna Chardonnieras
35. Joseph Xavier
36. Karan Singha
37. Khadija Errebah
38. Krishnakant Chauhan
39. Kumar Prashant
40. Lotika Singha
41. Mamadou Sy
42. Maryse Artiguelong (former FIDH Vice President)
43. Mody Watt (General Secretary, ONDH/ Sénégal)
44. Mona Bhan
45. Namdev Dagam
46. Nandita Narain
47. Navsharan Singh
48. Oli D’Cruz
49. Omer Aijazi
50. R Shameer Basha
51. Rajeev Singha
52. Rajni Shah
53. Rakshith M R
54. Raqib Naik
55. Ruki Fernando
56. Saba Ismail
57. Sam Kamalesan
58. Shahindha Ismail
59. Sherley Dokiburra
60. Shyama Sivadas
61. Siddeeqa Iram
62. Sidharth Tulsi Ganeshan
63. Siraj Dutta
64. Somasekhara sarma
65. Sruti Bala
66. Stephen J. Rapp
67. Suchitra Vijayan
68. Sudarshan Ramiengar
69. Suresh Babu Marayil
70. Suresh M
71. Théobald Rutihunza
72. Vasantha Lakshmi
73. Vijay S P
74. M
75. Vivek Sundara
76. VS Krishna
77. Yoojung Hong
78. Zainab Jamil
79. Zia Ur Rehman
80. Zohra Yusuf

The statement may also be read here.

Related:

Article 21 May Trump UAPA Bail Bar: Delhi High Court grants bail to Kashmiri rights defender Khurram Parvez after 4½ years in jail

UAPA: Delhi HC grants Bail to Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez after close to 5 years in alleged terror funding case

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

The post Release Kashmiri HRD Khurram Pervez immediately & unconditionally: International HR Fora appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In January 2026, CJP had documented in detail this phenomenon, a report that had been used widely in the public interest litigation that resulted in the May 2026 judgement. That detailed exploration may be read here. In all the documented cases, the photos and videos of accused were shot and shared on social media to embarrass them further. In essence, the police started a social trial against the accused and violated their dignity.

Defining public shaming could be a tricky task as it manifests itself in various forms. It could be through sharing photos online, parading in public, making accused do undignified acts, or simply—by publicly flogging the accused. However, the essence of the act remains, i.e., humiliating or punishing the accused in a manner that in the eyes of society they turn into criminals before the Court pronounces them to be so.

Public shaming does not refer to a single act of physical or mental torture but instead is a broader term wherein the accused is ridiculed (by being publicly paraded, or by having their degrading photos shared online), beaten up, and socially becomes a criminal before the trial ends (in most cases, before the trial even starts). It can be construed to be an umbrella term for violent offences that police inflict upon accused publicly.

Public shaming by police has been on the rise in the last few years. In the recognition of this rise, one has to see who has been affected by such incidents the most. Unsurprisingly, it is Muslims and Dalits, who are at the short end of the stick. As per a report tiled “Status of Policing in India Report 2025” published by Common Cause India and Lokniti empirically shows that more often than not the victims of police brutality have been from these marginalised communities. The specific act of public shaming is not any different, a perusal of the petitioners in all the cases that are analysed below makes it abundantly clear that public shaming by police unfairly affects the already marginalised. Ergo, the matter of Public Shaming has to be understood as a manifestation of State Violence as an instrument to marginalise. By perpetuating a form of violence that induces shame in the victim and ridicule in the observer, the State is further marginalising the already marginalised. Therefore, Public Shaming by police is clearly part of the phenomenon, State sanctioned violence against the minorities.

The act of public shaming is fundamentally Kafkaesque. Kafka in his famous short story In the penal colony talks about a society where accused’s body is inscribed with the alleged offence using needles. This act is carried out by a commander who happens to be the police, the judge and the executioner. The various instances of public shaming as happening in India are the similar if not the same. The police usurp the role of the judge and violates the dignity of an accused by beating and shaming them publicly. It contravenes inter alia, doctrine separation of powers and fundamental rights of the individuals—the salient features of a constitutional democracy.

In fact, in hitherto settled Indian criminal law jurisprudence, even convicts who have been convicted of serious offences are accorded –or should be accorded at least—fair if not humane treatment.

In the face of increase in public shaming by the police in Rajasthan (a detailed report on such incidents can be found here) the State’s High Court in the 2025 Islam Khan judgement laid down several guidelines that have to be followed by the police to curb such instances. It further held the act of public shaming to be violative of the fundamental right to privacy.

This primer will first breakdown the recent, year-old Rajasthan High Court judgement (Islam Khan and Others v. State of Rajasthan and Others) and analyse various aspects of it, including the final guidelines that were pronounced.

The second half of the primer shall deal with other judicial decisions pronounced by other constitutional courts, that is several other HCs and also the Supreme Court.

Lastly, we will attempt to demonstrate that there is an inconsistency in how courts have adjudged this issue. Considering the legal, social and psychological ramifications of public shaming, there is clearly a need for a sounder legal framework that can mitigate such occurrences. 

2025: Islam Khan and Others v. State of Rajasthan and Others

On the face of increase in acts of public shaming in Rajasthan (read a report on such incidents here), the High Court delivered a comprehensive judgement that laid down certain guidelines with the aim of stifling the practice. In the instance under examination here, the police had arrested the accused, degraded and humiliated them. Their photos and videos were shot and shared on social media. The judicial pronouncement came in response to this.

The judgement does a commendable job in grounding the prohibition of public shaming in three distinct constitutional features—doctrine of separation of powers, presumption of innocence, and respect of individual dignity. On the aspect of separation of powers, the Court starts with emphasising that the rule of law cannot be maintained without a functional separation of power. The invocation of this doctrine is important and novel, for it tacitly collapses the difference between a convict as per the court and a convict as per the media trial instigated by the police. The Court defines such a media trial engineered by the police to be “…a State-engineered narrative, wherein the police machinery, through press conferences, orchestrated disclosures, circulation of photographs, and at times even staged representations of arrest, seeks to project an accused person as culpable even before the due process of law has had an opportunity to unfold” (Paragraph 14)

The Judgement further reads, “Any transgression by the police into the judicial sphere, whether by declaring an accused guilty in the public domain, conducting actions that prejudice a fair trial, or exercising powers not sanctioned by law, would not only be without jurisdiction but would also strike at the very heart of due process” (Paragraph 13.2)

The Court by holding that media trial by police disturbs the constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers, implicitly held that media trial’s declaration of an accused as guilty is equally socially isolating and harmful as that of a court trial’s declaration, i.e., the mental or psychological effect is similar. Regardless of what the trial later proves, the accused in the eyes of the society becomes a criminal because of police actions that portrays them as convicts–or worse, sub-humans. The Court pegged the police action to its constitutional mandate of administrating law, not pronouncing guilt. The Court’s holding that merely showing an accused to be guilty amounts to a usurpation of judicial duties is crucial: in the context of public shaming particularly so; because the Police has repeatedly portrayed “accused” to be criminals in the eyes of the public. Such unprofessional, often partisan police conduct reduces public confidence in both the Police and Courts, eventually.

Making a logical extension of the aforesaid argument –separation of powers, the Rajasthan High Court went further to hold that criminal declarations vis a vis the accused by the police impacts the cardinal principle of presumption of innocence (until proven guilty). Media trials by the police displace the concept of presumption of innocence and whip up public prejudice and anger. Punishment precedes the conviction, and completely displaces the presumption of innocence.

Last not least, the force of this judgement lies in its assertion that the act of public shaming is a violation of human dignity. The Court recognises that acts of public shaming are ipso facto in contravention of human dignity. Dignity is the cornerstone of human rights. This is how dignity is acknowledged as a manifestation of human rights. The Preamble of the Constitution contains a solemn promise to secure the dignity of the individual as its framers were aware that the Constitution is an outcome of a long arduous struggle, which must value the dignity of an individual, independent of his social status.

The Court here grounded the inappropriateness of public shaming not just in Article 21 of the Constitution, but went a step further in the right direction, and held it to be violative of dignity itself. The effect of such a finding is that no law, circumstance, judicial pronouncement (that are often marred with legal hula-hoops to justify abhorrent actions) can justify public shaming by police. Its very existence is held to be impermissible. This is a crucial finding by a constitutional court.

However, it is the guidelines that the judgement lays down that sets it apart and hence its import. These guidelines are aimed to restrict if not stop public shaming from happening.  It is the first judicial pronouncement that explicitly lays down directions that ought to be followed by the police in the context of public shaming specifically. The guidelines require every police officer to follow the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prescribed by the authorities. It further emphasises that no arrestee shall be subject to misbehaviour, mishandling, manhandling, harassment, or any form of coercion under any circumstances.

Crucially, the Court held in these guidelines that “any act of social media condemnation orchestrated or facilitated by police authorities, which results in public humiliation of an individual, shall be construed as a form of punishment” (Paragraph 18[iii]).

By construing public shaming as a form of punishment itself, the Court effectively made sure that no police officer can engage in the same because it would contravene both presumption of innocence (as it would lead to punishing before conviction) and doctrine of separation of power (as it would lead to police usurping the judges’ roles of sentencing a punishment).

While the judgement— specifically the guidelines, prima facie, lay down what appears to be an effective deterrent to public shaming, a closer look at it reveals no concrete steps—an absence of enforceability. A logical extension to the guidelines could have been a) compensation for the accused subject to such acts; b) institutional correction and actions against offending police officers and c) any other.

Post May 2025, less than a month after the Islam Khan judgement, the Rajasthan High Court was again asked to adjudicate on an incident of public shaming by police (Puranmal vs State of Rajasthan and Ors.). The accused was arrested, and before producing him before the competent Court, the police forcibly shaved his head, dressed him in women’s clothes, and paraded him through a crowded market, while photographs and videos of the incident were circulated on social media and news channels. Unfortunately, unlike in the case of Islam Khan findings in the Puranmal judgement were diluted. The same court that had the benefit of the guidelines laid down in Islam Khan, (both were single judge benches), the Court in Parunmal held that police’s promise of not repeating such incidents hereinafter, is sufficient. No action was taken. Even in the previous Islam Khan, despite laying such guidelines, the Court had merely asked the police to remove the videos where the accused is degraded from Social Media sites and other platforms. No proceeding was started against the police. Therefore, while the guidelines are welcome, their effectiveness remain in question.

Similarly, various High Courts and Supreme Court over the years have given different judgements on the same issue of public shaming.

Other Judicial Responses to Public Shaming

The case of public shaming was also discussed by the Supreme Court in its 2012 judgement of Dr. Mehmood Nayyar Azam Vs. State of Chattisgarh and Ors. The Court was called to decide whether compensation should be granted to a victim of such public shaming, the Court held in affirmative and made a distinction between defamation and public shaming.

The Court held that public shaming is distinct from defamation, public shaming causes mental and physical agony. The Court added that “[because of public shaming] the hurt develops a sense of insecurity, helplessness and his self- respect gets gradually atrophied” (Paragraph 40).

Further, the Court held that, “The payment of compensation in such cases is not to be understood, as it is generally understood in a civil action for damages under the private law but in the broader sense of providing relief by an order of making ‘monetary amends’ under the public law for the wrong done due to breach of public duty, by not protecting the fundamental rights of the citizen. The compensation is in the nature of ‘exemplary damages’ awarded against the wrongdoer for the breach of its public law duty and is independent of the rights available to the aggrieved party to claim compensation under the private law in an action based on tort, through a suit instituted in a court of competent jurisdiction or/and prosecute the offender under the penal law” (Paragraph 43)

Later, in In-Re Banners Placed On Road Side In The City Of Lucknow (2020), the Allahabad High Court took suo moto action against the banners placed by the UP Police on the streets of Lucknow which contained several individuals’ photographs, name and address. The context is/was the the Uttar Pradesh government’s controversial “name and shame” billboards that had publicly displayed the names, photographs, and residential addresses of individuals accused of vandalism during the anti-CAA protests in December 2019. The administration demanded compensation for public property damages, threatening to seize assets if unpaid!. The Allahabad High Court had, in a judgement, strongly condemned the actions, ordered the removal of all banners that ‘named and shamed’ holding that these acts were a violation of privacy; when the matter was carried to the Supreme Court of India, the court without staying the HC’s finding referred the matter to a constitutional bench. A report may be read here. Clearly, however this judicial rap means little to the UP state administration that had in December 2024 revived this practice that was condemned by the Allahabad HC in 2020 and which, moreover targets privacy and due process. During the violence in Sambhal in western UP, incited because of the controversial attacks on the Shahi Jama Masjid there, the administration had publicly named and shamed over 400 so-called accused! A report may be read here.

In another ruling delivered in January 2021, the Allahabad High Court condemned the act of displaying a list of so-called ‘top criminals at different police stations in various districts of UP (Jeeshan and Ors. Vs. State of U.P. and Ors.) The Court not only took a dignitarian approach and condemned the State authorities, but also granted compensation for the violation of public shaming. Moreover the Court directed all the Police stations to remove the list, and warned them that if such action is repeated, criminal proceedings and monetary compensation shall follow.

The matter of public shaming has been dealt by Gujarat High Court differently.

In the case of Bhautik Vijaybhai Bhatt Vs Director General Of Police & Ors. (the case involved a bunch of instances of public shaming) in 2019, the Court deferred to the powers of the executive. The Court further held that since departmental actions for the offence had been already initiated by the higher authorities against the police officers, this was a sufficient remedy. As opposed to such a deferential attitude, the same court in the 2023, Jahirmiya Rehamumiya Malek Vs State of Gujarat judgement, held the officers in contempt. In this case, police officers had arrested the accused, tied them to a public pole and beaten them up. Recordings of these offences by the police were uploaded on social media sites. The Court held that such arrest was a violation of the DK Basu judgement (1997), and as the police officers violated Supreme Court guidelines, they ought to be held in contempt

The Madhya Pradesh High Court took a unique approach altogether. In the case of Sangram Singh Rajoot v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the petitioners were forced to walk from police station to Court on foot. The Court held that this act cannot be considered ipso facto, an act of public shaming. The Court gave a wide margin of deference to the police when it instructed the same authority (police) to “internally inquire” about the incident and find if “malice” can be attributed to the police officers! The Court observed that the representations submitted by the accused indicated that a grievance was raised before the authorities, mere non-action on such representations would not automatically warrant issuance of a writ of mandamus for initiating disciplinary proceedings, unless a prima facie case of misconduct is established. The Court delegated all its duties to the executive and did not even issue a writ of mandamus honouring the higher judiciary’s role in checking misuse of power and authority by the executive/administration.

A perusal of this catena of judgements around public shaming from 2012 (SC) to 2025-26, we observe no consistent discernable pattern. While constitutional courts have, in recent times, in some states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and even some orders from Gujarat, held the act of public shaming to be condemnable and directed corrective measures, social sanction for such shaming persists. The phenomenon of social media and its intrusive, sometimes unregulated character adds more complex dimensions. There appears a greater imperative on the Court, to intervene not just clearly but swiftly to restore the balance —in favour of the Rule of Law.

Conclusion

The foregoing analysis makes it evident that the practice of public shaming by the police is no more an aberration but has increasingly become a baton wielded by an overarching, often authoritarian and unaccountable executive. ‘Elected governments’ are choosing to use this as a  systemic feature of India’s law enforcement architecture. The legal, social, and psychological harms it engenders are profound, recurring, and largely unaddressed.

Decades ago, when such practices certainly existed but were considered an aberration not the norm[1], did the Courts rule more assertively? The Supreme Court in Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration (1980) was categorical in holding that handcuffing is prima facie inhuman, unreasonable, over-harsh, and arbitrary, and to inflict irons without fair procedure is to resort to zoological strategies repugnant to Article 21. The Court’s ruling was clear that freedom from handcuffs during transit between the prison and the court must be the rule and not the exception. Public shaming, in its various forms, is a direct descendant of the very practice Prem Shankar Shukla condemned. The DK Basu guidelines (1997) compounded this protection by laying down that custodial violence including torture and physical assault infringes Article 21, and that interrogation, though essential, must be conducted on scientific and humane principles, with third-degree methods being totally impermissible.

Yet, as the analysis of the Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh cases demonstrates, these guidelines are honoured more in their breach than in their observance. What the Prem Shankar Shukla and DK Basu guidelines could not anticipate was the peculiar, performative nature of public shaming in the age of social media, where the degradation of an accused: these acts are not merely incidental to an arrest but are part and parcel of the deliberate and orchestrated objective of the police action itself.

The social and psychological ramifications of this practice are equally severe, and they do not resolve themselves once the accused is acquitted. The Supreme Court in Dr. Mehmood Nayyar Azam observed that because of public shaming, the individual “develops a sense of insecurity, helplessness and his self-respect gets gradually atrophied.” Public humiliation, particularly when state-orchestrated and digitally disseminated, produces lasting trauma. The accused is no longer merely a person under trial. In the eyes of his community, employer, and family, he has been declared a criminal. His social reintegration becomes near impossible, irrespective of what the trial later concludes. The damage is therefore permanent, and the law currently has no instrument to make the victim whole. Monetary compensation, while progressive, cannot undo the viral spread of a degrading video.

The empirical picture is no less alarming. The incidents are not isolated and they are increasing. In Rajasthan alone, police officers in Sikar, Udaipur, Nagaur, Jhunjhunu, and Dausa have repeatedly forced accused men into women’s clothing, half-shaved their heads, and paraded them before crowds, with these unlawful acts being visually documented through 2025. The problem is not geographically contained. In Jammu, within a single month in 2025, there were at least two widely reported incidents of public shaming, one involving a theft accused being made to sit on the bonnet of a moving police vehicle with his hands tied and shoes garlanded around his neck, and another involving three men being publicly thrashed by police personnel after arrest, reigniting debate over the increasing tendency of law enforcement to resort to performative justice. The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that a group of advocates in Jammu lodged a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission alleging that law enforcement authorities are bypassing constitutional safeguards and replacing lawful investigation procedures with performative public punishment, leading to irreversible damage to the dignity and fundamental rights of the accused.

In light of all of this, the conclusion is inescapable. Indian criminal jurisprudence (analysed above related to Islam Khan 2025 and other verdicts) needs to be widely discussed, even as citizens, civil rights groups and the media discuss and deliberate on the serious ramifications of this deliberate executive-police fracture and capture of the ‘Rule of Law.’ What are the steps that need to be taken so we return the debate to conduct accountability by the Indian Police?

Is then what is needed is a centralised statutory or Supreme Court-mandated framework that defines public shaming exhaustively, prescribes mandatory consequences for violations including automatic contempt proceedings and compensation, and places a structural obligation on States to train and supervise their police forces accordingly? Without such a framework, the courts will continue to pronounce guidelines that are ignored, and the accused will continue to be paraded, shamed, and broken, long before any verdict is returned.

Relevant Judgements

[1] The 1979-1980 “Bhagalpur blindings” refer to a horrific series of human rights abuses in Bihar, India—when the Police deliberately blinded 31 undertrial and convicted prisoners by puncturing their eyes with needles and pouring acid into the sockets

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Hamzah Patel)

Related

Rajasthan’s Public Shaming: Police humiliation practices defy law and human dignity

CJP writes to NHRC over Police brutality against teaching candidates in Lucknow, UP

CCTV in Police Stations: From judicial directives to constitutional accountability

Custody, Camaraderie, and Cover-Up: Supreme Court transfers custodial death probe to CBI, slams MP police for “shielding their own”

Dalit boy’s death in police custody and arson attack on Dalit homes: A dual crisis of justice in BJP-ruled states

The post The Court spoke, the police paraded anyway appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Court answered that question in the affirmative.

In doing so, it has delivered what may prove to be one of the most consequential judgments on internet governance and platform regulation in India. While the judgment is framed as a narrow, emergency response to an exceptional situation, the legal principles it endorses have implications that extend to every major digital platform operating in India. The decision substantially expands the scope of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, broadens the meaning of “public order” in the digital context, and adopts an unusually deferential approach to governmental claims of necessity and proportionality.

The immediate dispute may have ended with NEET. The constitutional questions raised by the judgment have only just begun.

A case that was never really about Telegram

The government’s justification for the blocking order rested on a familiar narrative. Following the cancellation of the original NEET examination amid allegations of paper leaks and widespread irregularities, authorities claimed that Telegram had become a central vehicle for the circulation of fraudulent examination material, fake leak claims, scams targeting candidates, and organised cheating networks.

The government relied upon reports from the National Testing Agency (NTA), the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), and various law-enforcement agencies to argue that Telegram’s infrastructure had become deeply embedded in these activities. The Court accepted these claims, noting allegations that channels openly advertising themselves as “PAPER LEAKED NEET” and similar variants were operating on the platform and soliciting large sums of money from students. The Court also accepted evidence suggesting that mirror channels, reserve groups, bots, and audience migration systems allowed operators to evade enforcement efforts and quickly reconstitute themselves after takedowns.

Yet the real issue before the Court was not whether examination fraud existed. Few would dispute that it did. The real issue was whether the existence of unlawful activity on a platform can justify disabling access to the platform itself.

That distinction is critical. The Indian legal system has long recognised that newspapers may publish unlawful content without justifying a ban on newspapers as a medium. Telephone networks may be used for criminal conspiracies without justifying the suspension of telecommunication services. Email services may facilitate fraud without warranting the shutdown of email itself.

The question before the Court was therefore not whether Telegram had been misused, but whether misuse by some users justified restricting access for everyone. The judgment ultimately answers that question in favour of the State.

A detailed report on the Telegram ban may be read here.

Transforming Section 69A into a platform-blocking power

The single most important aspect of the decision is the Court’s interpretation of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Historically, Section 69A has been understood as a mechanism through which the government can block access to specific information hosted online. The provision authorises blocking “any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource.”

Telegram argued that this language permits blocking particular content but not an entire platform. The Court rejected this argument.

Relying upon the expansive definition of “information” under Section 2(1)(v) of the IT Act—which includes software, computer programmes, codes and databases—the Court held that there was “no reason to exclude an application or platform” from the scope of Section 69A. Since Telegram itself is software comprising code, databases, and communication infrastructure, the Court concluded that the entire platform constitutes “information” capable of being blocked.

“The expression “information”, appearing in Section 69A of the IT Act, is defined under Section 2(1)(v) of the IT Act and includes, inter alia, images, sound, voice, codes, computer programmes, software and databases. The breadth of the said definition indicates that the expression “information” is required to be construed expansively. A restrictive construction, confining the expression only to individual user accounts, channels, images, posts, files or messages, would unduly narrow the scope of Section 69A and may render the provision otiose. The legislative intent, therefore, appears to be to confer a broad and technologically neutral meaning upon the expression “information”.” (Para 35)

This is a dramatic interpretive leap. Section 69A was enacted in a vastly different technological context. For years, it has been used primarily to block URLs, websites, accounts, posts, pages, and other identifiable pieces of online content. The Delhi High Court’s reasoning effectively transforms it into a statutory basis for disabling entire digital ecosystems.

The distinction is not merely semantic as blocking a webpage and blocking a platform are fundamentally different exercises of state power. One targets particular content. The other disables an entire infrastructure of communication.

The judgment therefore does not simply uphold the Telegram ban. It significantly enlarges the legal architecture of internet censorship in India. If the reasoning is followed in future cases, the government may argue that any platform itself constitutes “information” and may therefore be blocked whenever authorities conclude that statutory grounds under Section 69A are satisfied. The implications extend far beyond Telegram.

The extraordinary expansion of “Public Order”

Equally striking is the Court’s treatment of public order. Section 69A permits blocking only on limited grounds, including sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, and public order. Historically, Indian constitutional jurisprudence has treated “public order” as a serious and relatively narrow category. The Supreme Court has repeatedly distinguished public order from ordinary law-and-order concerns and emphasised that restrictions on fundamental freedoms require a proximate and not merely speculative connection with public disorder.

In the present case, however, the Court appears willing to accept a significantly broader conception of public order. The judgment repeatedly refers to the possibility that misinformation regarding examination papers could erode public confidence in the examination process, trigger unrest among candidates, undermine faith in public institutions, and potentially lead to public disorder.

This reasoning raises important concerns. The Court does not identify any actual breakdown of public order directly caused by Telegram’s continued operation between the issuance of the blocking order and the examination. Instead, it relies primarily upon anticipated consequences and the possibility of future disruption.

“In the present case, the Impugned Order discloses that temporary blocking of the public access to Telegram is directed having regard to the potential grave implications for public order in the country and for preventing the commission of cognizable offences arising from the circulation of examination-related misinformation and purported examination papers on Telegram, particularly in light of prior incidents relating to NEET UG, 2026.” (Para 24)

“Thus, this Court is of the view that given the emergency nature of the Impugned Order, the reasons supplied in arriving at the decision were sufficient. As Respondent No. 1 has strictly followed the procedural steps as required under Section 69A of the IT Act, the challenge to the Impugned Order on the ground non-communication of reasons cannot be sustained. Accordingly, the objections founded on alleged non-application of mind and inadequacy of opportunity of hearing also fail given the statutory scheme of Section 69A of the IT Act and 2009 Rules. In view of the foregoing, this Court is of the considered opinion that the Impugned Order contains reasons and there exists a direct and substantial nexus between the direction issued and the reasons assigned.” (Para 25)

The result is a conception of public order that appears considerably broader than traditional constitutional doctrine. Under this framework, the State may be able to justify restrictions not because disorder exists, but because misinformation could theoretically undermine public confidence in an institution and thereby create conditions for disorder.

That shift is significant. If accepted as a general principle, the same logic could potentially be invoked in relation to elections, recruitment examinations, public protests, political controversies, or other events where misinformation is alleged to threaten institutional legitimacy. The danger lies not in the immediate facts of the case, but in the elasticity of the principle being created.

The curious treatment of proportionality

The Court repeatedly invokes the doctrine of proportionality and cites the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Anuradha Bhasin. It correctly notes that restrictions upon fundamental rights must be necessary, proportionate, and constitute the least restrictive means available for achieving a legitimate objective.

However, the judgment’s application of that doctrine is considerably less rigorous than its recitation. The government’s central claim was that narrower measures had failed. According to authorities, Telegram’s architecture enabled the rapid reappearance of unlawful actors through mirror channels, reserve groups, bots, and alternate identities. Consequently, channel-specific takedowns were said to be ineffective.

The Court largely accepted this assertion. What is missing, however, is a meaningful examination of alternative measures.

“In the present case, the NEET UG, 2026 examination is scheduled to be conducted on 21.06.2026. The temporary blocking of Telegram under the Orders is operative only until 22.06.2026, while the disabling of the message-editing feature is confined to the period until 30.06.2026. The limited temporal scope of these measures demonstrates that they are narrowly tailored and confined to the period strictly necessary for securing the stated objective. Applying the parameters laid down in Anuradha Bhasin (supra), this Court is satisfied that the requirements of proportionality stand fulfilled, namely: (i) identification of a legitimate objective; (ii) existence of a rational nexus between the objective and the measure adopted; (iii) necessity of the measure in the facts and circumstances of the case; and (iv) adoption of the least restrictive measure available.” (Para 46)

A genuine proportionality analysis would ordinarily require the State to demonstrate why each less restrictive option was inadequate. The judgment does not meaningfully interrogate several possibilities:

• enhanced emergency compliance obligations;
• platform-specific moderation requirements;
• targeted blocking of identified channels;
• restrictions on public channels exceeding certain thresholds;
• disabling forwarding features;
• temporary limitations on bot functionality;
• emergency monitoring arrangements;
• targeted orders directed at specific classes of accounts.

Instead, the Court appears to accept the government’s conclusion that these alternatives would not work. The distinction is important because proportionality requires courts to independently verify governmental claims of necessity. It does not require courts merely to accept them. By deferring substantially to executive assessments regarding platform architecture and technical feasibility, the Court risks diluting the very standard of scrutiny that proportionality was designed to impose.

The forgotten rights of 150 million users

Perhaps the most striking omission in the judgment is the relative absence of any serious engagement with the rights of Telegram’s lawful users. The Court expressly acknowledges that approximately 150 million people in India use Telegram. Yet these users remain largely invisible throughout the constitutional analysis.

The judgment contains extensive discussion of examination integrity, public confidence, platform architecture, bots, channels, and enforcement difficulties. Comparatively little attention is devoted to the rights being restricted.

There is almost no sustained analysis of:

• the speech rights of ordinary users;
• educational communities operating on Telegram;
• journalists and researchers using the platform;
• businesses conducting communications through Telegram;
• civil-society organisations dependent upon Telegram networks;
• the broader Article 19(1)(a) implications of disabling an entire communications platform.

This imbalance matters because proportionality requires balancing. The Court carefully assesses the interests of 2.2 million NEET candidates but devotes far less attention to the constitutional rights of 150 million users whose access to a communications platform was suspended. The asymmetry is difficult to ignore.

Architecture as a basis for restriction

Another deeply consequential feature of the judgment is its repeated emphasis on Telegram’s architecture. The Court identifies Telegram’s defining characteristics as reasons why platform-wide intervention was necessary:

• large public channels;
• cloud-based storage;
• automated bots;
• anonymity through usernames;
• reserve-channel structures;
• rapid audience migration systems;
• message-editing functionality.

What is striking is that the Court explicitly acknowledges that these features are not unlawful. Yet it nonetheless treats them as factors justifying extraordinary state intervention because they allegedly make enforcement more difficult. This aspect of the judgment may have implications extending far beyond examination fraud.

“The Orders expressly record that entity-specific interventions, including the reporting and removal of channels, groups, bots, and accounts, were repeatedly found to be ineffective and inadequate. Further, the audience-migration mechanisms enable operators to rapidly reconstitute networks after enforcement action was taken by the concerned authorities. It is clearly observed in the Orders that despite corrective measures having been sought in relation to various misuses of the Telegram platform, fresh material, including reports received from Respondent Nos. 2 and 3, disclosed the continued occurrence of illicit activities by unlawful entities notwithstanding prior interventions. Therefore, it is evident that narrower measures, including the takedown of specific bots and channels, were ineffective having regard to the particular nature and architecture of the Telegram platform.” (Para 45)

Many privacy-protective technologies are deliberately designed to minimise surveillance, decentralise control, or resist centralised moderation. If technological architecture itself becomes a ground for restrictive action whenever authorities believe it impedes enforcement, a wide range of digital platforms could face heightened regulatory vulnerability. The judgment therefore moves the debate beyond content moderation and into the realm of platform design. That shift is profound.

Preventive regulation and the message-editing feature

The Court also upheld the government’s separate direction disabling Telegram’s message-editing functionality. The rationale was that users could allegedly modify messages after an examination and falsely create the impression that papers had been leaked beforehand. Telegram’s own acknowledgement that it was making edited labels more visible was treated as corroborative evidence supporting this concern.

Here too the Court adopts a highly preventive approach. Rather than responding to demonstrated misuse, the restriction is justified largely by the possibility of future misuse. The judgment therefore reflects an increasing willingness to permit governmental intervention into platform design choices based upon anticipated harms rather than completed violations. Whether such preventive regulation can be reconciled with robust free-speech protections remains an open question.

A judgment likely to impact India’s digital future

The Delhi High Court presents its decision as a narrow, temporary and exceptional response to an extraordinary crisis surrounding NEET-UG 2026. Yet some of the most significant constitutional judgments emerge from exceptional circumstances. The lasting importance of this case lies not in the temporary suspension of Telegram but in the principles the Court has endorsed:

• that Section 69A authorises blocking entire platforms and not merely content;
• that platform architecture may itself justify platform-wide restrictions;
• that examination-related misinformation can be treated as a public-order threat warranting emergency intervention;
• that post-decisional hearings can sufficiently cure concerns regarding emergency censorship;
• and that the rights of millions of lawful users may be overridden where the State demonstrates a sufficiently compelling regulatory objective.

Taken together, these propositions represent a substantial expansion of executive power over digital communications. The judgment undoubtedly reflects legitimate concerns about examination fraud, organised criminal networks, and the integrity of public institutions. But constitutional law is tested not when governments pursue illegitimate goals, but when they pursue legitimate ones through extraordinary means.

The real question raised by the Telegram judgment is therefore not whether the State should combat examination fraud. It unquestionably should. The deeper question is whether the misuse of a communications platform by some users can justify denying access to all users.

By answering that question in the affirmative, the Delhi High Court has moved Indian internet jurisprudence decisively toward a model of platform-level regulation and censorship. Whether higher courts ultimately endorse that approach may determine the future contours of digital freedom in India.

The complete judgment may be read below:

Related:

Censorship After NEET: A substitute for accountability

When Morality Meets Surveillance: The court’s push toward state-regulated digital content

Repeal recent amendments to the RTI act, 2005: Justice A.P Shah in an Open Letter

Safe harbour or shadow censorship? The battle over India’s digital speech

State-sponsored attacks of surveillance reveal an erosion on Indians’ right to privacy, especially journalists, political opposition

The post The telegram NEET case and the expansion of platform-level censorship in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

You came into this world having already lost your mother and were raised by your father alone. Life could not have been easy, but you lived it—fretted, cursed, and loved through it all.

You studied only up to the 10th standard, yet through sheer hard work, courage, and instinct, you built a successful saree business. Long before people spoke about women’s empowerment, you were living it every day. You would probably never have thought yourself a feminist but you taught through the life you lived, to be capable, to be self-reliant, earn your own money, make your own decisions, and never surrender your self-respect.

When Appa was making his film and money was scarce, you stepped in without a second thought. You cooked and catered for the entire shoot, feeding what felt like a small army. You never sought recognition for it, simply doing what needed to be done.

But your greatest achievement was not your successful work or even the home you built by yourself. It was the values you gave Gauri and me.

You drilled into our heads—sometimes gently, but more often not—that we had to be independent, financially and emotionally. Having lived life on your own terms, you understood how important it was for women to have their own money, their own voice, and their own sense of self. You taught us that true independence is about dignity: the freedom to choose, the freedom to walk away when necessary, and the ability to stand tall without relying on anyone else to define our worth.

And then there was Esha.

You absolutely adored your granddaughter. After Gauri passed away, then thirteen-year-old Esha became your anchor. In your eyes, she could do no wrong—which, to be fair, she rarely did. And in her eyes, you could do no wrong either.

The bond the two of you shared was something else. Through your influence, and through the example that you, Gauri, and I tried to set, Esha has grown into a mature, caring, and fiercely independent young woman.

But you were not perfect.

Perhaps all the hardships you endured left their mark. You could be suspicious, a little feudal in your thinking, and often inclined to see the worst before the best. Living with you was not always easy. In fact, Gauri used to joke that she wanted to start a group called “Amma Andre Nange Kashta” and appoint herself its founding chairperson.

I had my own joke. I used to say that even if you made it to heaven, it wouldn’t be long before you found fault with something there. You would complain about the food, the arrangements, or how things were being run. Before long, the gods would throw up their hands in defeat and send you right back.

You could be demanding, stubborn, censorious and exhausting in ways that only a mother can be. But I guess the same experiences that made you cautious also made you resilient. The same stubbornness that frustrated us was the stubbornness that helped you survive, persevere, and build a life against difficult odds.

Today, I don’t remember you as a perfect person. I remember you as my Amma.

Strong. Tough. Loving. Generous. Infuriating. Impossible. Irritating. Unforgettable.
And somehow, all of those things together are exactly what made you beautiful.

And, I hope you feel that you lived your life to the fullest. At 83 years old, in just the last month, you came all the way to Delhi to see Esha graduate; you watched the beautiful play” Love Letters “and fell in love with actor Kishore. On your birthday, June 2nd, you celebrated relishing rose cake and a Whiskey Old Fashioned Esha made you.

Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for the strength you passed on to us. Thank you for loving us in the way you knew how.

For all the arguments, all the exasperation, all the laughter, and all the love—thank you.
I will miss you.
Every day.
Yours
Baby

(Kavitha Lankesh)

Editor’ Note: A year after the brute assassination of Gauri Lankesh on September 5, 2017, Teesta Setalvad Secretary CJP had brought out this small anthology of Kavitha’s poems to her sister: all written in one year. They were published in a booklet Akka. The booklet may be accessed here.

Related

My Sister, My Soul Mate: A Poem for Gauri by Kavita Lankesh

The post From a daughter to her mother Indiramma, Kavitha Lankesh writes, “I will miss you. Everyday.” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

These were not routine disputes. They involved some of the most fundamental questions a constitutional democracy can confront.

• What happens when citizenship is assessed through imperfect documents? How should courts respond to allegations of extra-judicial killings by state agencies?
• Can access to reservation be denied despite an undisputed claim to social disadvantage?
• Does privacy survive within the intimate space of marriage?
• To what extent can environmental violations be regularised after the fact?
• How much power can unelected constitutional authorities exercise over the decisions of elected governments?
• And how far may the State intervene in the administration of minority religious institutions?

The answers offered by the Court reveal an important judicial trend. In several of the year’s most consequential judgments, the Court displayed a marked preference for procedural rigour, institutional finality and administrative deference. Questions of substantive justice frequently became secondary to questions of compliance. Structural inequalities often received less attention than formal legal requirements. Concerns about accountability were sometimes met with faith in existing institutions rather than the creation of stronger oversight mechanisms. In matters involving citizenship, reservation, police violence, environmental governance and constitutional accountability, the Court often chose restraint where intervention was sought and certainty where contextual flexibility was urged.

To be sure, judicial restraint is itself a constitutional value. Courts cannot govern, administer or legislate. Yet constitutional adjudication has always demanded more than technical legal reasoning. It requires courts to recognise the unequal realities within which law operates and to ensure that constitutional guarantees remain meaningful for those who possess the least social, political and economic power. It is against this backdrop that the Supreme Court’s major decisions of 2025 must be understood—not merely as isolated rulings on discrete legal questions, but as judgments that collectively illuminate the Court’s evolving understanding of rights, accountability, state power and constitutional governance.

Reintroducing three years bar practice raises concern on deepening structural inequality in judicial recruitment

In All India Judges Association v. Union of India, the Supreme Court delivered their judgment in May 2025, restoring the requirement of prior legal practice as a condition for appearing in lower judicial service examinations, effectively overturning the position adopted in the Third AIJA judgment (1999), which had removed the practice mandate. The Court justified the move on the ground that newly recruited judicial officers often lack practical courtroom experience and familiarity with litigation processes. Relying on the views of several High Courts and earlier observations in the Second AIJA case, the Court held that three years of practice at the Bar would better equip candidates for the responsibilities of trial court adjudication from the very first day of service.

The judgment also clarified that the three-year practice requirement would be calculated from the date of provisional enrolment, and candidates would need certification from an advocate with at least ten years’ standing or from a presiding officer to verify actual legal practice. The Court viewed practical exposure to litigation, client interaction, drafting, and courtroom procedure as indispensable for improving the quality of the subordinate judiciary. In doing so, it sought to standardise eligibility conditions across States and strengthen institutional competence at the grassroots level of the judicial system.

However, the ruling has attracted significant criticism for creating structural barriers that disproportionately affect first-generation lawyers, economically weaker aspirants, women, and candidates from marginalised communities. On of the criticism is that the requirement risks reinforcing nepotism and inherited privilege within the legal profession, as candidates from established legal families are far more likely to secure stable chamber placements, financial support, and meaningful litigation exposure during the mandatory practice period. By contrast, many young graduates—particularly from Dalit, Adivasi, OBC, minority, and rural backgrounds—often struggle to survive financially in the initial years of litigation practice, which remains deeply informal, underpaid, and dependent on personal networks.

The impact on women candidates may be especially severe. Litigation spaces in many parts of India continue to be male-dominated, insecure, and institutionally exclusionary, with persistent concerns regarding harassment, lack of mentorship, unequal briefing opportunities, and unsafe working conditions. For many women aspirants, direct entry into judicial service after graduation had become a relatively stable and dignified avenue for professional advancement and financial independence. The mandatory practice requirement may now force them into precarious professional environments for several years before they can even compete for judicial posts, potentially discouraging participation and reducing diversity within the judiciary itself.

The judgment fails to justify why exactly three years of practice constitutes the appropriate threshold for judicial competence. The Court did not provide any empirical or institutional basis for fixing this duration, raising concerns of arbitrariness under Article 14. It can be further argued that instead of excluding fresh graduates altogether, the Court could have strengthened judicial academies and post-selection training mechanisms, as earlier recognised in the Third AIJA judgment. Additionally, the possibility of exploitation during the mandatory practice period and the emergence of informal “certificate” systems, where young advocates may become dependent on senior lawyers for proof of practice, thereby creating new forms of gatekeeping within judicial recruitment.

Citizenship by Technicality: When documentary perfection trumped substantive justice

The Supreme Court’s decision in Rofiqul Hoque v. Union of India, also delivered in May last year, reflects a deeply formalistic approach to citizenship adjudication in Assam, one that places overwhelming emphasis on documentary precision while paying insufficient attention to the realities of record-keeping, migration, poverty, and bureaucratic inconsistency. While the Court correctly reiterated the legal principle from Abdul Kuddus that inclusion in the NRC cannot override a prior declaration by a Foreigners Tribunal, the troubling aspect of the judgment lies in its treatment of evidence and its unwillingness to contextualise documentary discrepancies.

The Court accepted the Tribunal’s rejection of the petitioner’s evidence based on variations in age, village names, and familial details appearing across electoral rolls spanning several decades. However, such discrepancies are hardly uncommon in rural India, where voter lists, land records, school certificates and identity documents have historically been riddled with clerical errors, transliteration mistakes, inaccurate age recording, and inconsistent spellings. Previous Supreme Court jurisprudence had generally recognised these realities and assessed citizenship claims by examining the cumulative credibility of the evidence rather than demanding documentary perfection. In Rofiqul Hoque, however, minor inconsistencies were elevated into determinative defects without sufficient consideration of whether they actually undermined the core claim of lineage.

Particularly concerning is the Court’s treatment of the village discrepancy. The judgment faulted the petitioner for not explaining the movement of his family between villages and districts over time. Yet migration within Assam for work, river erosion, floods, displacement, marriage and economic necessity is a common social reality. Expecting individuals to produce documentary proof of every movement made by previous generations places an extraordinarily onerous burden on those already struggling to establish citizenship. The Court’s reasoning effectively transforms the burden under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act into a near-impossible evidentiary standard for many poor and rural residents whose lives were never documented with administrative precision.

The consequences of this approach extend far beyond the individual petitioner. Citizenship proceedings in Assam disproportionately affect economically vulnerable communities, linguistic minorities, Muslims, women, landless labourers and persons with limited access to education and documentation. Women, in particular, often face severe documentation gaps because their identities are frequently recorded through male relatives, marriage results in changes of residence, and formal educational records are absent. By treating documentary inconsistencies as fatal without adequately accounting for these structural realities, the judgment risks reinforcing existing inequalities in citizenship determination.

Equally troubling is the Court’s failure to interrogate the broader reliability of the documentation regime itself. Electoral rolls prepared by the State, school records maintained by public institutions, and official identity documents are all products of government processes. When inconsistencies emerge across these records, the burden is placed entirely upon the individual to explain them, while the systemic deficiencies that produced such discrepancies escape scrutiny. The judgment therefore shifts the consequences of administrative failure onto those whose citizenship is under challenge.

While the Court was legally justified in holding that NRC inclusion cannot nullify a Foreigners Tribunal declaration, the judgment ultimately reflects a narrow and technical conception of citizenship adjudication. In a context where the stakes involve detention, statelessness, family separation and loss of fundamental rights, constitutional courts are expected to adopt a more humane and contextual assessment of evidence. Instead, Rofiqul Hoque signals a move towards documentary rigidity, where minor inconsistencies can outweigh the broader evidentiary picture and where procedural exactitude risks eclipsing substantive justice.

Detailed report may be read here.

Reservation reduced to a technicality

In this judgment, delivered in May, the Supreme Court adopted an extremely formalistic approach to reservation by holding that a candidate belonging to the OBC category could be denied the benefit of reservation solely because he submitted a caste certificate in the format prescribed for Central Government employment rather than the specific format required by the Uttar Pradesh recruitment advertisement. The Court held that compliance with the prescribed format was mandatory and that candidates could not seek relaxation merely because they genuinely belonged to a reserved category.

The ruling prioritises procedural compliance over substantive justice. There was no dispute about the candidate’s social identity, caste status, or eligibility for reservation. The rejection was based entirely on the format of the certificate rather than the authenticity of the claim itself. By treating reservation as a matter of paperwork rather than a constitutional mechanism designed to remedy historical disadvantage, the Court effectively elevated bureaucratic requirements above the objective of ensuring representation for marginalised communities.

The judgment is particularly troubling because it ignores the realities faced by many applicants from socially and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Recruitment processes are often complex, highly technical, and difficult to navigate. Minor mistakes in documentation are common, especially among first-generation applicants, rural candidates, and those with limited access to legal or administrative assistance. Instead of requiring authorities to verify an admittedly genuine caste claim, the Court endorsed a rigid approach that permanently excludes candidates on procedural grounds.

The consequences of such reasoning fall disproportionately on members of reserved communities, including OBCs, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women from marginalised backgrounds, and economically vulnerable applicants who rely most heavily on affirmative action measures. By reducing access to reservation to strict compliance with technical formats, the judgment risks transforming a constitutional guarantee of substantive equality into a bureaucratic exercise where form prevails over social justice.

Passing the buck on encounter accountability in the Assam fake encounters case

In June, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Assam fake encounter case represents a missed opportunity to enforce meaningful accountability for allegations of extra-judicial killings and police violence. The petition placed before the Court was not based on a handful of isolated incidents but on as many as 171 alleged encounter cases, many of which raised concerns regarding compliance with the safeguards laid down in PUCL v. State of Maharashtra. These guidelines were intended to ensure that every encounter death or serious injury is subjected to independent scrutiny precisely because the police cannot be allowed to investigate themselves in cases involving the possible use of unlawful force.

While the Court acknowledged that allegations of fake encounters, if proven, would amount to grave violations of the right to life under Article 21, it stopped short of exercising its own constitutional authority to secure an independent investigation. Instead, it transferred the matter to the Assam Human Rights Commission for inquiry. This approach is difficult to reconcile with the extraordinary nature of the allegations. The very basis of the petition was the claim that existing institutional mechanisms had failed to adequately investigate encounter cases over several years. Referring the matter back to a state-level body, without constituting an independent judicial commission, Special Investigation Team, or court-monitored inquiry, risks reproducing the same limitations that prompted the litigation in the first place.

The judgment is particularly striking because the Court appeared to undertake a preliminary assessment of the allegations and observed that, barring a few cases, it was difficult to infer widespread non-compliance with the PUCL guidelines. Such observations sit uneasily with the Court’s simultaneous decision to direct a fresh inquiry. If the allegations required independent scrutiny, there was little reason for the Court to make broad prima facie observations appearing to endorse the State’s version of events. Conversely, if the material was insufficient to warrant further intervention, the matter could have been dismissed. The judgment attempts to occupy both positions simultaneously, thereby diluting the force of its own concerns.

More fundamentally, the Court declined to confront the structural reality of encounter policing. Allegations of extra-judicial killings involve the most serious exercise of state power—the taking of life without judicial process. In such circumstances, constitutional courts have historically acted as guardians of civil liberties, particularly where victims or their families may be unable to challenge state narratives. The Court recognised that fear, intimidation and power imbalances often prevent victims from coming forward. Yet having acknowledged these realities, it refrained from creating a robust mechanism capable of overcoming them.

The consequences of this restraint are particularly significant for marginalised communities. Encounter killings and custodial violence disproportionately affect poor persons, religious minorities, Adivasis, Dalits, migrant workers and those accused of crimes who lack social or political power. These are precisely the groups least capable of securing independent investigations against the police. By declining to establish a stronger accountability framework despite the unprecedented scale of allegations before it, the Court left unresolved the central question raised by the petition: whether constitutional guarantees against arbitrary deprivation of life can be meaningfully enforced when the alleged violator is the State itself.

In the end, the judgment acknowledges the seriousness of the allegations but avoids the constitutional consequences that such seriousness demands. Faced with claims involving 171 alleged encounter cases, the Supreme Court chose institutional deference over judicial intervention. For a case that raised profound concerns about the rule of law, the decision ultimately places responsibility elsewhere rather than exercising the Court’s own extraordinary powers to uncover the truth.

Privacy sacrificed at the altar of matrimonial litigation

In a judgment with far-reaching implications for privacy within intimate relationships, the Supreme Court in July held that secretly recorded conversations between spouses are admissible in matrimonial proceedings. While the Court framed the issue as one of balancing privacy against the right to a fair trial, the decision arguably weakens one of the most significant constitutional developments of recent decades—the recognition of privacy as an intrinsic part of dignity, autonomy and personal liberty under Article 21.

The Court’s reasoning proceeds on the assumption that once a marriage has deteriorated to the point where one spouse is secretly recording the other, the relationship has already broken down and concerns regarding privacy lose much of their force. This logic is troubling. Constitutional rights do not disappear because a relationship is strained. If anything, privacy protections become more important in situations of conflict, where surveillance, coercion and monitoring are most likely to occur. The judgment appears to reduce privacy to a matter of marital harmony rather than treating it as an independent constitutional value that survives even within family relationships.

Equally concerning is the Court’s reliance on Section 122 of the Evidence Act. The provision was intended to create limited exceptions to spousal privilege in litigation between spouses. It was not designed as a broad endorsement of covert surveillance or secret recording within marriage. By treating admissibility as a natural extension of the statutory exception, the judgment blurs the distinction between permitting evidence in court and legitimising the way that evidence is obtained. The result is that evidence procured through intrusion into private conversations may now be rewarded with evidentiary value, potentially incentivising greater monitoring between spouses.

The practical consequences of the ruling are likely to be felt unevenly. Women, who continue to face disproportionate levels of surveillance and control within domestic relationships, may be particularly vulnerable. In abusive or coercive marriages, phones, messages, and conversations are often monitored as tools of domination. By validating secretly recorded conversations as admissible evidence, the judgment risks normalising forms of conduct that are frequently associated with domestic control rather than legitimate evidence-gathering. The Court does not meaningfully engage with these realities or with the gendered dimensions of privacy violations within the home.

The implications extend beyond women. LGBTQ+ persons, individuals in interfaith marriages, and members of socially marginalised communities often rely upon privacy as a shield against social stigma, family interference, and discrimination. The judgment’s expansive acceptance of covert recordings may create anxieties about whether intimate conversations, personal disclosures, or private vulnerabilities could later be weaponised in litigation. In privileging evidentiary utility over informational privacy, the Court offers little guidance on where constitutional limits to such surveillance should lie.

At a broader level, the judgment sits uneasily with the privacy jurisprudence developed after the Supreme Court’s recognition of privacy as a fundamental right. Rather than asking whether secret recordings constitute a disproportionate intrusion into personal autonomy, the Court approached the issue primarily through the lens of evidentiary necessity and fair trial rights. The result is a decision that substantially expands the admissibility of privately obtained evidence while offering only limited protection against the growing possibility of surveillance within the most intimate sphere of human life—the family itself.

Stray dog verdict undermines animal welfare protections and established legal frameworks

In August, In Re: Menace of Dog Bites and Rabies (2025), the Supreme Court adopted an unprecedented approach to stray dog management by directing authorities in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Ghaziabad to immediately pick up stray dogs from public spaces and detain them in shelters without releasing them back into their original locations. The Court further warned that individuals or organisations obstructing the exercise could face legal consequences and contempt proceedings. Emphasising the need to protect children from dog attacks and rabies, the Court declared that “no sentiments should be involved” in addressing the issue.

The judgment marks a significant departure from India’s existing animal welfare framework. The Animal Birth Control Rules, framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, are based on the principle of capture, sterilisation, vaccination and release of dogs back into the same locality. This framework was developed after years of scientific and policy deliberation and has consistently been recognised as the governing legal regime for stray dog management. By directing that no captured dog should be released under any circumstances, the Court effectively displaced the statutory scheme without engaging with the rationale underlying it. In doing so, the judgment elevates a judicially crafted solution over a legislatively enacted framework designed to balance public health concerns with animal welfare obligations.

The ruling is also troubling for its treatment of animal welfare voices and participatory decision-making. The Court refused to entertain intervention applications from animal welfare stakeholders and expressly stated that no sentiments should be involved in the matter. However, questions concerning stray animal management have long involved competing interests, including public safety, animal welfare, municipal governance and scientific expertise. By excluding welfare organisations and discouraging contrary perspectives, the judgment narrows the scope for informed and evidence-based policymaking. The result is a highly securitised approach that treats stray animals primarily as a threat rather than as living beings protected under existing legal frameworks.

The consequences of the judgment are likely to fall disproportionately on both animals and vulnerable communities. The Court’s directions require the creation of large-scale shelter infrastructure capable of housing thousands of dogs indefinitely. Yet many municipal bodies already struggle to implement existing sterilisation and vaccination programmes due to resource constraints. The absence of a clear roadmap regarding shelter capacity, funding, veterinary care and long-term maintenance raises serious concerns about overcrowding, neglect and institutionalised confinement of animals. At the same time, poorer localities—which often face the greatest deficits in public health and municipal services—may bear the burden of implementing an expensive and administratively demanding model that lacks demonstrated feasibility.

Viewed more broadly, the judgment represents a retreat from the rights-based and welfare-oriented jurisprudence that has characterised much of India’s animal protection law over the past two decades. Rather than strengthening implementation of existing legal mechanisms, the Court opted for a sweeping solution that effectively side-lines statutory protections in favour of indefinite detention. In a year that witnessed several progressive rulings expanding constitutional protections for vulnerable groups, this judgment stands out as a notable exception—one that prioritised immediate executive action over legal consistency, scientific evidence and established principles of animal welfare.

Sealed Covers, Finality and the Silencing of Scrutiny: The Vantara judgment

The Supreme Court’s decision accepting the SIT’s clean chit to Vantara raises serious concerns about transparency, accountability and the future of public interest litigation involving powerful private actors. While there is nothing inherently objectionable about the Court relying on an independent investigation, the troubling aspect of the judgment lies in the extraordinary degree of finality it accords to a process that remains largely shielded from public scrutiny. In September, the Court accepted the SIT’s conclusions, directed that the detailed report remain confidential, and simultaneously declared that no further complaints or proceedings based on the same allegations would be entertained before judicial, statutory or administrative forums. In effect, a matter involving wildlife conservation, animal welfare, imports of endangered species and alleged regulatory violations was brought to a conclusive end without the public ever gaining access to the material on which that conclusion was reached.

The judgment reflects an uncomfortable reliance on the sealed-cover method, a practice that has repeatedly attracted criticism in recent years. Although the Court made the summary public, the substantive report, annexures and supporting material remain inaccessible. This makes meaningful public evaluation of the findings impossible. Wildlife regulation, environmental governance and animal welfare are matters of significant public concern. When allegations are dismissed on the basis of evidence that remains hidden from public view, confidence in the process inevitably suffers. The issue is not whether Vantara is ultimately innocent or guilty of the allegations; rather, it is whether the adjudicatory process itself remains transparent enough to inspire trust.

Equally concerning is the Court’s decision to effectively foreclose future proceedings based on the same allegations. Such a direction goes beyond merely accepting the findings of an investigation. It creates a near-impenetrable shield against further scrutiny, even though new evidence may emerge in the future or different complainants may possess material that was not previously examined. Public interest litigation has historically played a crucial role in uncovering environmental harms, wildlife trafficking networks and regulatory failures. By declaring that no further complaints based on the same allegations should be entertained before any judicial, statutory or administrative forum, the Court risks chilling future whistleblowing and discouraging legitimate public oversight.

The judgment also adopts a notably deferential approach towards regulatory authorities. One of the central allegations raised by the petitioners was not merely that violations occurred, but that multiple regulatory bodies had failed to adequately discharge their responsibilities. Yet the Court’s reasoning appears to treat the existence of permits, approvals and official clearances as sufficient answers to many of the concerns raised. Environmental and wildlife jurisprudence in India has historically recognised that formal compliance does not always guarantee substantive compliance. Regulatory approvals themselves may warrant scrutiny, particularly in matters involving endangered species, conservation and large-scale wildlife transfers. The judgment leaves little room for such questioning.

Perhaps most strikingly, the Court not only dismissed the allegations but expressly left open the possibility of defamation actions and criminal proceedings against those responsible for what it termed misinformation. While litigants who make knowingly false allegations should not be immune from consequences, such observations in a public interest matter risk creating a chilling effect on activists, researchers, journalists and conservation groups seeking to raise concerns about powerful institutions. Public interest litigation often operates in spaces where complete information is unavailable to outsiders. If unsuccessful challenges are followed by the threat of defamation or criminal proceedings, legitimate watchdog activity may be deterred.

Ultimately, the judgment signals a shift away from the openness and continuing oversight that have traditionally characterised environmental and wildlife litigation. The Court may well have been satisfied that Vantara committed no legal violations. However, by relying on confidential findings, granting sweeping finality to the investigation, and discouraging future scrutiny, the decision raises larger concerns about transparency and public accountability. In a sector where independent oversight is often the only mechanism through which concerns reach the public domain, the judgment appears to prioritise closure over continued scrutiny.

A deferential approach to the Waqf amendments raises concerns for minority rights

The Supreme Court’s interim judgment on the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, delivered in September, represents one of the most consequential judicial responses to a religious freedom challenge in recent years. While the Court stayed certain provisions relating to executive determination of property disputes, it declined to suspend most of the legislation, effectively allowing a far-reaching restructuring of waqf governance to operate pending final adjudication. In doing so, the Court adopted an approach marked by substantial deference to legislative policy, even where the amendments alter long-settled understandings of waqf administration and management.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the judgment concerns the Court’s treatment of waqf by user. For centuries, numerous mosques, dargahs, graveyards and charitable institutions acquired recognition not through formal deeds but through uninterrupted public use and community acceptance. The doctrine evolved precisely because many religious endowments predated modern systems of land registration and documentary record-keeping. By accepting the legislative decision to effectively eliminate this category and by placing considerable emphasis on the failure of mutawallis to register properties despite statutory opportunities, the Court privileges formal documentation over historical reality. Such an approach risks exposing a significant number of longstanding religious properties to future disputes, particularly where documentary evidence has been lost, destroyed, or never existed in the first place. The judgment appears to assume that the absence of registration necessarily reflects neglect or misuse, rather than recognising the complex historical circumstances under which many waqf properties evolved.

The Court’s endorsement of the requirement that a person must have practised Islam for five years before creating a waqf also raises difficult constitutional questions. While the Court accepted the State’s concern regarding potential misuse of waqf protections, it did not sufficiently grapple with the implications of empowering the State to scrutinise the sincerity, continuity, or duration of an individual’s religious practice. Questions regarding who determines religious observance, what evidence would be considered sufficient, and whether such inquiries are compatible with constitutional protections of religious freedom remain largely unanswered. The temporary stay granted by the Court is procedural rather than substantive; the constitutional concerns underlying the provision remain unresolved.

Equally significant is the Court’s acceptance of provisions that narrow who may create waqfs and the circumstances under which waqf claims may be asserted. Historically, waqf law in India developed through a combination of religious principles, community practices and statutory regulation. The amendments shift this balance decisively toward bureaucratic control and formal compliance. By treating these changes primarily as matters of legislative policy, the judgment pays relatively little attention to the broader question of whether the cumulative effect of these provisions alters the essential character of waqf as a community-based religious institution.

The Court’s approach to the inclusion of non-Muslim members in Waqf Boards similarly reflects caution rather than rigorous constitutional scrutiny. While numerical limits were imposed through interim directions, the larger question—whether bodies entrusted with administering specifically Islamic religious endowments can be substantially reconstituted through state intervention—was effectively deferred. This issue strikes at the heart of debates concerning religious autonomy under Articles 25 and 26. Yet the judgment stops short of engaging with these concerns in any meaningful manner.

To its credit, the Court intervened where executive power threatened to displace adjudicatory functions. The stay on provisions permitting revenue officers to determine whether disputed properties constituted government land recognises that questions of title cannot simply be resolved through administrative fiat. However, this intervention also highlights a broader inconsistency within the judgment. While the Court was willing to act decisively when executive encroachment upon judicial functions became apparent, it displayed considerably greater restraint when confronted with concerns regarding religious autonomy, community rights, and the historical protection of waqf properties.

The larger concern arising from the judgment is not merely the fate of individual provisions but the constitutional vision it appears to endorse. The amendments collectively move waqf governance away from historical usage, community recognition and institutional autonomy, towards a framework centred on registration, documentation, state oversight and administrative control. The Court’s refusal to substantially intervene at the interim stage allows this transformation to proceed even before the constitutional validity of the amendments has been conclusively determined.

The significance of the judgment lies not only in what it stayed, but in what it permitted. By largely accepting Parliament’s framing of waqf reform as an exercise in transparency and accountability, the Court afforded limited weight to concerns that the amendments fundamentally alter the legal and institutional foundations upon which waqf administration has historically rested. The result is a judgment that, while cautious in form, may have profound consequences for the future of religious endowments, minority institutional autonomy, and the constitutional relationship between the State and religious communities.

Environmental Compliance Diluted: Supreme Court revives post-facto environmental clearances

In Review in Vanashakti v. Union of India (2025), a 2:1 majority of the Supreme Court recalled the landmark Vanashakti judgment delivered only months earlier, which had prohibited the Union Government from granting post-facto environmental clearances (ECs) to projects that commenced operations without obtaining prior environmental approval. Through the judgment delivered in November, the majority, led by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, held that the earlier judgment had failed to consider certain coordinate bench decisions permitting post-facto clearances in exceptional circumstances. As a result, the Court reopened the question and restored the possibility of regularising projects that began operations in violation of environmental law.

The judgment represents a significant setback for environmental governance in India. The principle of prior environmental clearance lies at the heart of the country’s environmental regulatory framework. Environmental impact assessments are intended to evaluate risks before a project begins, not after ecological damage has already occurred. By permitting the continued use of post-facto clearances, the Court weakens the deterrent effect of environmental law and effectively rewards non-compliance. Instead of treating prior clearance as a mandatory legal safeguard, the judgment risks reducing it to a procedural hurdle that can be cured retrospectively once investments have already been made.

The majority’s reasoning placed considerable emphasis on economic costs, infrastructure investments and the practical difficulties associated with halting or dismantling projects. However, this approach shifts the consequences of illegal environmental conduct away from project proponents and onto affected communities and ecosystems. Once a project is operational, authorities and courts are often reluctant to order closure due to sunk costs and employment concerns. This creates a powerful incentive for developers to proceed without clearances and seek regularisation later. As Justice Ujjal Bhuyan observed in his dissent, it cannot be left to violators to invoke the consequences of their own unlawful conduct as a reason for avoiding legal accountability.

The impact of such a dilution is felt most acutely by marginalised communities. Large infrastructure, mining and industrial projects disproportionately affect Adivasi populations, forest-dwelling communities, fishing communities, small farmers and rural residents whose livelihoods depend on land, forests and water resources. Environmental impact assessments and clearance processes are often the only institutional mechanisms through which these communities can raise objections and participate in decision-making. Permitting post-facto clearances weakens these protections by allowing projects to become fait accompli before meaningful consultation can occur. Women within these communities frequently bear the heaviest burden, as environmental degradation directly affects access to water, fuel, food security and household livelihoods.

The judgment also signals a broader judicial shift from precautionary environmental protection towards regulatory flexibility and economic pragmatism. The original Vanashakti ruling reaffirmed a long-standing environmental principle: that development must comply with environmental safeguards before, not after, ecological harm is caused. By recalling that decision, the Court has created uncertainty regarding the enforceability of environmental law and weakened one of the most important checks on unlawful development. In a year marked by several constitutional decisions expanding rights and accountability, this judgment stands out as a significant retreat from the principles of environmental justice, precaution and sustainable development that have historically guided Indian environmental jurisprudence.

Detailed report may be read here.

Presidential reference dilutes judicial checks on governor and presidential delays

In November, in the Presidential Reference concerning Articles 200 and 201 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court substantially altered the position it had adopted earlier in the Tamil Nadu Governor case. The Constitution Bench held that Governors enjoy discretion while acting on Bills under Article 200 and are not bound by the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers when choosing whether to assent, withhold assent and return a Bill, or reserve it for the President’s consideration. The Court further held that neither the Governor’s decision under Article 200 nor the President’s decision under Article 201 is ordinarily justiciable. While courts may issue a limited mandamus in cases of prolonged and unexplained inaction, they cannot examine the merits of the constitutional functionaries’ decisions.

The Court also rejected the idea of judicially prescribed timelines for Governors and Presidents to act on Bills. Overruling key aspects of its earlier Tamil Nadu judgment, it held that the Constitution deliberately preserves flexibility in the legislative process and that courts cannot impose rigid deadlines where the Constitution itself is silent. The Court further clarified that the concept of “deemed assent” has no constitutional basis and that neither Article 142 nor any other constitutional provision permits courts to substitute the constitutional role assigned to the Governor or President in the legislative process.

The ruling significantly weakened democratic accountability and judicial oversight over constitutional authorities. By recognising broad governor discretion and removing enforceable timelines, the judgment arguably creates space for Governors to indefinitely delay legislation passed by elected State legislatures. This effectively revives the possibility of a “pocket veto” in practice, even if not in name. Given the increasing frequency of political confrontations between opposition-ruled States and Governors appointed by the Union Government, the judgment is seen as tilting the constitutional balance away from representative institutions and towards unelected constitutional offices.

The decision will have critical implications for Indian federalism. Earlier judicial interventions had sought to prevent Governors from obstructing legislative agendas endorsed by democratically elected governments. By treating governor’s discretion as largely insulated from judicial review and rejecting timelines altogether, the Court has weakened one of the few constitutional safeguards available to States against executive delay. It can be contended that the judgment places excessive faith in constitutional morality and convention despite repeated instances where constitutional offices have become sites of political contestation. In doing so, it may leave State legislatures with limited remedies when legislation concerning welfare, education, social justice, reservations, or other state policies remains stalled for prolonged periods without any meaningful constitutional accountability.

Detailed report may be read here.

Conclusion

Viewed together, the Supreme Court’s most consequential judgments of 2025 reveal a Court increasingly inclined towards institutional deference, procedural discipline and constitutional restraint. Again and again, the Court was confronted with opportunities to expand accountability, deepen rights protections or scrutinise the exercise of public power. Just as often, it chose a more cautious path.

In citizenship adjudication, documentary inconsistencies were allowed to outweigh the realities of poverty, migration and flawed record-keeping. In reservation jurisprudence, bureaucratic form triumphed over undisputed social identity. In the Assam encounter litigation, allegations involving the possible unlawful deprivation of life were acknowledged as grave, yet responsibility for investigation was ultimately shifted elsewhere. In the privacy judgment, constitutional concerns about surveillance within intimate relationships gave way to evidentiary considerations. In environmental law, the deterrent value of prior clearance requirements was diluted in favour of practical accommodation. In matters concerning waqf governance and gubernatorial powers, the Court displayed significant deference to legislative and constitutional authorities even where concerns regarding minority rights and democratic accountability were directly implicated. And in the Vantara litigation, finality and closure were prioritised over transparency and continuing public scrutiny.

What emerges is not a Court abandoning rights altogether, but one increasingly reluctant to place itself in direct confrontation with institutions of power. The recurring judicial instinct was not to aggressively police the boundaries of executive authority, administrative action or legislative policy, but to trust existing structures to function within constitutional limits. Whether in relation to the State, regulatory authorities, constitutional officeholders or investigative processes, the Court frequently preferred supervision at a distance over intervention at close quarters.

The difficulty with such an approach is that constitutional rights are rarely tested when institutions function perfectly. They matter most when institutions fail, when power is exercised disproportionately, when vulnerable communities cannot protect themselves, and when procedural neutrality masks deeper inequalities. It is in these moments that constitutional courts have historically played their most important role—not merely as interpreters of law, but as guardians against arbitrariness and as protectors of those who stand furthest from centres of power.

The lasting significance of these judgments therefore lies beyond their immediate facts. Collectively, they raise a larger question about the direction of constitutional adjudication in India. Is the Court entering an era defined primarily by restraint, deference and institutional trust? Or can constitutionalism continue to demand a more searching engagement with questions of inequality, accountability and rights protection? The answer will shape not only future jurisprudence but also the lived experience of citizenship, liberty, equality and democracy itself.

For that reason, the major judgments of 2025 should not be read merely as legal outcomes. They should be understood as constitutional signals—revealing how the Supreme Court increasingly sees its role in relation to power, governance and the protection of rights. Whether that vision ultimately strengthens or weakens constitutional democracy remains one of the most important questions these decisions leave behind.

Related:

Cracks in Environmental Jurisprudence: A study of central India’s High Courts

Guarding Liberty, Marking Limits: The Supreme Court’s defining judgments of 2025

The judiciary’s commitment to protecting rights: notable Supreme Court judgments of 2024

Ramifications of SC judgment on CCTVs in Police Stations

One step forward, two steps back: SC on Abortion rights

Mapping Gender-Based Violence in India: Trends, determinants, and institutional frameworks

Broadcasting Bias: CJP’s fight against hatred in Indian news

2023: India’s Bad Laws, what a weaponised state means for individual freedoms and indigenous rights

The post The Supreme Court in 2025: Deference, technicality and the retreat from rights appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The proceedings reveal a complex intersection of competing constitutional and governance concerns. On one hand lies the Court’s continuing concern regarding the rights of pedestrians, the accessibility of public spaces, and the obligation of public authorities to enforce existing laws regulating street vending. On the other hand lies the reality that the regulatory framework created by Parliament in 2014 to govern street vending has remained only partially implemented in Mumbai for more than a decade. The result is that many of the individuals who are now the subject of identification and enforcement exercises exist within a legal and administrative landscape shaped not merely by unlawful occupation of public spaces, but also by prolonged governmental failure to complete the statutory processes contemplated under the Street Vendors Act.

The Bombay High Court’s intervention must therefore be understood against a much broader historical backdrop. The present controversy is not simply about the existence of unauthorised hawkers. It is also about the consequences of a decade-long failure to fully implement a law that was specifically enacted to regulate street vending while protecting the livelihoods of some of India’s most economically vulnerable workers.

The regulatory framework and the incomplete implementation of the Street Vendors Act

The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 represented a significant departure from earlier approaches to street vending. Prior to the enactment of the legislation, vendors across Indian cities often existed in a precarious legal position. Despite performing an essential economic function and serving millions of urban consumers, they were frequently treated as encroachers and subjected to eviction drives, confiscation of goods, harassment, and arbitrary displacement.

The Act sought to establish a more balanced framework. Rather than treating street vendors as a problem to be removed, Parliament recognised vending as a legitimate occupation and sought to regulate it through a system of surveys, registration, certification, designated vending zones, and representative Town Vending Committees. The legislation was premised on the understanding that public spaces could be managed in a manner that balanced urban planning concerns with the constitutional protection of livelihood.

The Town Vending Committee was intended to serve as the cornerstone of this framework. These committees were tasked with conducting surveys, identifying eligible vendors, issuing certificates of vending, recommending vending zones, and ensuring periodic review of the regulatory framework. Importantly, the Act contemplated that surveys would be conducted at regular intervals and that the regulatory system would remain responsive to changing urban realities.

In Mumbai, however, the implementation of the Act remained deeply uneven. Although surveys were initiated, subsequent stages of the process progressed slowly. Certification exercises remained incomplete, disputes arose regarding eligibility, and the functioning of Town Vending Committees became a recurring source of controversy. As a result, the comprehensive regulatory framework envisaged by Parliament never fully materialised. The consequences of these delays have become central to the present litigation.

The centrality of the 2014 survey and the status of 99,435 vendors

One of the most significant figures repeatedly referred to in the Bombay High Court proceedings is 99,435. This number derives from the survey conducted by the BMC following the enactment of the Street Vendors Act and has become the foundation of the Court’s recent directions, discussed below in detail, regarding identification and verification.

The significance of this figure cannot be understood without appreciating the broader statutory context. The survey was intended to form only one component of a larger regulatory process. It was expected that the information gathered during the survey would subsequently be used to determine eligibility, issue certificates, designate vending zones, and create a functioning regulatory system overseen by Town Vending Committees.

However, while approximately 99,435 applicants were surveyed, the larger statutory process remained incomplete. Many vendors who participated in the survey never received final vending certificates. Others continued to operate in a legal grey zone, possessing survey records or acknowledgements but lacking the formal documentation contemplated under the Act.

Vendor organisations have repeatedly argued that this prolonged administrative uncertainty created a category of workers whose relationship with the law remained unresolved. They were neither fully regularised nor formally excluded. Instead, they existed within a system that acknowledged their presence but failed to conclusively determine their legal status.

This unresolved situation became particularly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Street vendor organisations repeatedly highlighted how incomplete implementation of the Act affected access to welfare schemes, financial assistance, and emergency relief measures. Many vendors were unable to access benefits because they lacked documentation that they had been waiting years to receive. Representatives of vendor unions pointed out that while tens of thousands had participated in official survey processes, only a small proportion had ultimately received formal recognition through certificates of vending.

Detailed report may be read here and here.

The present litigation therefore unfolds against the backdrop of a regulatory process that remains unfinished more than a decade after the enactment of the legislation.

The proceedings before Bombay High Court

The proceedings before the Bombay High Court arise from a long-running public interest litigation concerning the regulation of street vending, hawking and encroachments on roads, pavements and public spaces across Mumbai. The petition is rooted in persistent complaints that despite repeated judicial directions, large-scale unauthorised hawking continues to obstruct pedestrian movement, affect traffic circulation, impede access to railway stations, hospitals and public infrastructure, and undermine urban planning efforts. Over the years, the litigation has expanded into a broader examination of the implementation of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, the functioning of Town Vending Committees (TVCs), the creation of vending and non-vending zones, the conduct of surveys of eligible vendors, and the responsibilities of multiple authorities including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbai Police, Railways and the State Government. The Court has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with what it views as administrative inaction and the failure of authorities to establish an effective regulatory framework despite the existence of a statutory scheme.

The current phase of the litigation reflects the Court’s growing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of municipal and police authorities in regulating street vending across Mumbai. During successive hearings, the Court examined affidavits and compliance reports submitted by the BMC and other authorities detailing enforcement actions undertaken against unauthorised hawkers. However, photographs and materials placed before the Court frequently suggested that locations identified for special monitoring continued to witness significant vending activity despite repeated eviction drives.

The Court consequently began questioning whether existing enforcement efforts were producing any meaningful or lasting results. Particular concern was expressed regarding the apparent reappearance of vendors shortly after eviction operations had concluded. According to the Court, the issue was not merely the removal of vendors but the inability of public authorities to prevent the repeated reoccupation of the same spaces.

This concern became a recurring theme across several hearings. The Court repeatedly questioned why vendors who had been removed from specific locations appeared able to return almost immediately despite the presence of municipal authorities and police personnel. The judges also expressed concern regarding the apparent disconnect between the assurances provided in court and conditions observed on the ground.

The Court increasingly viewed the issue as one involving institutional accountability. Municipal authorities pointed to challenges associated with enforcement and reoccupation. Police authorities referred to limitations arising from municipal responsibilities. The Court, however, repeatedly emphasised that the continued shifting of responsibility between agencies could not justify the persistence of conditions that had been the subject of litigation for years.

The proceedings thus gradually evolved from a discussion regarding individual instances of encroachment into a broader examination of governance failures and administrative accountability.

• October 2025: The Court signals that assurances are no longer enough

The proceedings in this petition intensified significantly during the hearing held on October 22, 2025. By this stage, the BMC had already informed the Court that it had identified twenty locations across Mumbai for focused action and monitoring. Municipal authorities asserted that steps were being taken to remove unauthorised hawkers and prevent their return.

However, photographs placed before the Court painted a different picture. Images of the area immediately outside the Bombay High Court showed that hawkers continued to occupy spaces despite repeated assurances regarding enforcement.

The Court expressed clear dissatisfaction with the situation. Justice Gadkari observed that despite repeated directions and solemn assurances from authorities, unauthorised hawkers continued to maintain a significant presence across the city. The Bench indicated that it would no longer be satisfied with general statements regarding enforcement and would instead insist upon measurable compliance.

Specific stretches, including the area from Flora Fountain to Horniman Circle, were placed under direct scrutiny. Municipal officials and police authorities were directed to ensure that these locations remained free from unauthorised hawking. The Court’s approach reflected a growing belief that the problem was not the absence of legal powers but the failure to exercise them effectively.

• November 2025: The Court expands the inquiry across Mumbai

The hearing in November 2025 marked an important shift in the Court’s approach. The issue was no longer treated as confined to a handful of locations. Instead, the Court began examining the broader condition of public spaces across Mumbai.

The Bench remarked that there appeared to be virtually no commercial district, market area or railway precinct in the city that remained unaffected by hawking. The judges questioned submissions suggesting that police personnel could not verify whether vendors possessed licences or authorisations. The Court pointed out that there was nothing preventing officers from demanding documentation and taking action against unauthorised vendors.

A recurring concern during the hearing was the phenomenon of reoccupation. According to the Court, the central problem was not merely that vendors were being removed; it was that they were returning almost immediately after enforcement operations concluded.

The Court identified twenty major locations across the city—including railway station precincts, Colaba Causeway, Linking Road, Hill Road, Mohammad Ali Road, Kurla, Ghatkopar and the route between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and the High Court—for continuous monitoring and enforcement, as per LiveLaw.

The hearing reflected the Court’s emerging view that the problem was systemic and required sustained institutional intervention rather than sporadic eviction drives.

• December 2025: Questions regarding political and administrative will

The Court’s frustration became more pronounced during the December 2025 hearing. The immediate trigger was the continued presence of hawkers in the vicinity of the High Court despite previous directions and the existence of a nearby police chowki. The judges openly questioned whether the State intended to comply with judicial directions at all.

Justice Gadkari remarked that the State needed to clarify whether it intended to enforce the law or permit citizens to act as they pleased. The Court also rejected suggestions that the issue should be viewed solely through the lens of vendors’ rights. While acknowledging that street vendors possess constitutional protections, the Bench emphasised that pedestrians and ordinary residents also possess rights that require protection, as per LiveLaw.

A particularly significant observation concerned the temporary clearance of the area during the swearing-in ceremony of the Chief Minister. The Court noted that authorities had demonstrated their capacity to clear the area when required but had failed to maintain those conditions thereafter. This observation reinforced the Court’s growing conviction that the persistence of the problem was not merely a question of capacity but one of sustained commitment.

• March and April 2026: The Court turns to the state’s failure to implement the act

The hearings during early 2026 marked another significant development. The Court increasingly shifted its focus from immediate enforcement failures to the larger question of why the Street Vendors Act had not been fully implemented despite having been enacted more than a decade earlier.

The most pointed criticism emerged during the hearing on April 28, 2026. When the Maharashtra Government produced a Government Resolution outlining future steps for implementation of the Act, the Court reacted sharply.

Justice Gadkari repeatedly questioned what authorities had been doing since 2014. The Bench described the Government Resolution as little more than an “eyewash” and “lip service,” observing that the State appeared to be creating implementation frameworks that should have existed years earlier, as reported by LiveLaw.

The Court was equally dismissive of statistics indicating that action had been taken against approximately 9,000 illegal hawkers. Pointing out that estimates suggested the presence of several lakh vendors across Mumbai, the Bench observed that the figures presented by the State addressed only a small fraction of the larger issue.

The hearing also highlighted concerns regarding intimidation faced by citizens who reported illegal hawking. References were made to threats, violence and retaliation against complainants. Justice Khata observed that many residents had effectively lost faith in the willingness of authorities to act.

The Court repeatedly emphasised that sufficient legal powers already existed and that the problem lay in implementation rather than legislative inadequacy.

The order may be read here.

• May 2026: The shift from enforcement to identification

The hearings conducted during May 2026 marked a significant transformation in the nature of the proceedings. Until this point, the Court’s primary concern had been enforcement. Increasingly, however, the focus shifted toward identification and verification.

The Court began examining how authorities could distinguish between vendors who formed part of the surveyed population and those operating outside the recognised framework. This discussion coincided with concerns raised regarding alleged undocumented foreign nationals, particularly Bangladeshi nationals, engaged in vending activities.

The BMC informed the Court that alleged foreign nationals residing illegally in India could not be permitted to engage in hawking and that verification exercises were necessary to identify such persons.

The Court’s response was to direct the creation of a comprehensive identification system based upon the 2014 survey database. QR-code-based identity cards were ordered for all 99,435 surveyed vendors.

The Court clarified that the issuance of identity cards would not create legal rights or confer recognition beyond existing entitlements. Rather, the purpose was to facilitate identification and distinguish surveyed vendors from persons operating outside the recognised framework.

When the BMC sought additional time for implementation, the Court expressed impatience. Justice Gadkari observed that the issue had persisted for years and that authorities could not continue to seek extensions while illegal activities allegedly continued. The Bench even suggested that the State Government allocate funds necessary to expedite the process.

The Court also directed the creation of citizen-reporting mechanisms, including dedicated WhatsApp systems, online portals and email addresses through which complaints regarding illegal hawking could be submitted.

The order may be read here.

• June 2026: Questions regarding the survey database

The hearing conducted on June 10, 2026 introduced a new dimension to the proceedings by raising questions regarding the reliability of the very database upon which the ongoing identification exercise is based.

Information placed before the Court suggested that certain individuals included within the 2014 survey records may not have been genuine hawkers and may instead have been shop owners who obtained inclusion through incorrect documentation. The Court treated these allegations seriously and directed that they be examined through an inquiry supervised by senior police officials.

This development is significant because it demonstrates that the process of verification is not limited to identifying persons outside the survey database. It also extends to examining the integrity of the database itself.

The allegations suggest that questions remain regarding the accuracy of records generated during the original survey exercise. If those records are now being used as the basis for determining legitimacy, then the reliability of the underlying data inevitably assumes considerable importance.

The June hearing therefore highlighted a broader challenge confronting the ongoing exercise. The task is not merely to distinguish surveyed vendors from unsurveyed vendors. It is also to ensure that the records being relied upon are themselves accurate and capable of supporting regulatory decisions with significant consequences for livelihoods.

The order may be read here.

The shift in the Court’s perspective

• How It Began: Public spaces, pedestrian rights, and constitutional concerns

A central feature of the Court’s reasoning, prior to May, has been its concern regarding the rights of pedestrians and the accessibility of public spaces. Throughout the proceedings, the Court has repeatedly emphasised that roads, footpaths and public areas exist primarily for public use and that authorities possess an obligation to ensure that citizens are able to access them safely and freely. Particular attention has been paid to the condition of footpaths and public thoroughfares in major commercial districts and around railway stations.

The Court has expressed concern that large sections of Mumbai’s public spaces have effectively become inaccessible to pedestrians because of encroachments and unauthorised vending activities. According to the Court, this situation raises questions not merely of urban management but also of constitutional governance.

In several hearings, the Bench linked the issue to broader concerns regarding the right to move freely and the obligation of public authorities to protect public infrastructure intended for common use. The judges repeatedly observed that the State cannot abdicate its responsibility to regulate public spaces and that continued inaction ultimately affects the rights of ordinary citizens. These concerns formed the foundation of the Court’s insistence upon stricter enforcement measures and closer monitoring of compliance.

• What It Became: The shift towards identification and verification

It is crucial to highlight that the recent 2026 proceedings have been about the Court’s increasing emphasis on identification and verification as mechanisms for regulating street vending. Earlier hearings focused primarily upon questions of encroachment and enforcement. More recent proceedings, however, have increasingly concentrated on distinguishing authorised vendors from unauthorised ones. This shift has been accompanied by directions requiring authorities to verify the identities of vendors and establish mechanisms capable of determining who falls within the recognised survey population.

The Court ultimately directed the BMC to undertake an exercise involving the issuance of QR-code-based identification cards to the 99,435 vendors included in the 2014 survey database. According to the Court, such a system would enable authorities to identify surveyed vendors and distinguish them from persons operating outside the recognised framework.

The BMC subsequently informed the Court that it had commenced the process of contacting and verifying the surveyed vendors. During the June 2026 hearing, municipal authorities indicated that the exercise remained ongoing and that additional time would be required to complete contact and verification procedures involving the entire surveyed population.

The Court has also directed the establishment of mechanisms through which members of the public can report instances of alleged illegal hawking. These measures include dedicated online portals, email addresses and WhatsApp-based complaint systems intended to facilitate direct reporting by citizens.

From a legal perspective, the State undoubtedly possesses the authority to investigate and act against persons residing unlawfully within India. However, the incorporation of migration-related concerns into litigation concerning street vending introduces a number of additional constitutional and policy considerations.

Street vending has historically been associated with economically vulnerable populations, including internal migrants, religious minorities, and workers employed within the informal economy. In recent years, several parts of the country have witnessed attempts to frame questions of livelihood, documentation and market participation through broader narratives concerning migration, citizenship and national security.

Consequently, the increasing emphasis upon identity verification raises important questions regarding the safeguards that will govern implementation. Verification exercises may be lawful and necessary for regulatory purposes, but they must remain grounded in evidence and due process. The distinction between lawful verification and profiling becomes particularly significant when questions of citizenship and migration become intertwined with questions of livelihood.

The implementation of the Court’s directions will therefore require careful attention to procedural fairness and constitutional protections.

The unaddressed issues 

• The Missing Conversation: Livelihood, informality and the original purpose of the Street Vendors Act

One striking feature of the Bombay High Court proceedings is the relative absence of sustained engagement with the livelihoods question that lies at the heart of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014. Much of the litigation has centred on encroachments, pedestrian mobility, enforcement failures, unauthorised hawking and, more recently, identity verification. Yet the legislation itself was enacted because Parliament recognised that street vending is not merely an issue of urban management but one of livelihood, survival and economic justice. The Act emerged from decades of judicial intervention and policy reform aimed at ending the treatment of vendors as illegal occupants and recognising them instead as legitimate economic actors whose right to work required legal protection alongside reasonable regulation of public spaces.

The present dispute exposes the consequences of the State’s prolonged failure to implement that legislative vision. The fact that nearly 99,435 vendors were surveyed but large numbers remained trapped in administrative limbo for years illustrates a deeper institutional failure. These are not individuals operating entirely outside the system; they participated in official surveys, were recorded by public authorities and entered statutory processes that were never fully completed. The result has been persistent insecurity, leaving vendors vulnerable to eviction drives, confiscation of goods, extortion, loss of income and arbitrary exclusion from public spaces. These vulnerabilities became especially visible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when thousands of vendors across India struggled to access welfare measures precisely because the regulatory framework intended to formalise and protect their status remained incompletely implemented. Against this backdrop, the central question before Mumbai is not simply how to remove unauthorised hawkers, but whether the city can finally establish a regulatory regime that protects livelihoods while regulating public space in the manner Parliament originally intended, rather than perpetuating the cycle of enforcement, litigation and uncertainty that has characterised the past decade.

• Citizenship, identity and the risk of communalisation

The Bombay High Court’s emphasis on identification, verification and the removal of unauthorised vendors cannot be viewed in isolation from broader national developments in which questions of trade, livelihood and public space have increasingly become entangled with questions of religion, citizenship and belonging. Over recent years, Muslim vendors across several states have faced organised economic boycott campaigns, exclusion from markets, demands for identity disclosure and allegations linking their commercial activities to public health threats, demographic anxieties or national security concerns. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, public campaigns urged consumers not to purchase goods from Muslim traders; villages in parts of Madhya Pradesh displayed banners barring Muslim vendors; political leaders publicly called for avoiding purchases from Muslim traders; and Muslim vendors were repeatedly subjected to suspicion and exclusion based solely on identity.

Equally significant has been the rise of informal and extra-legal identity policing. In several instances, private actors and vigilante groups have demanded identity documents, compelled traders to reveal their religious identities, pressured businesses to display religious markers, and effectively assumed functions reserved for lawful authorities. The experiences of Kashmiri traders across Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere demonstrate how quickly livelihood questions can become questions of citizenship and belonging, with vendors facing assaults, forced document checks, expulsion from localities, economic boycotts and accusations of disloyalty or terrorism. It is within this broader context that concerns arise regarding large-scale verification exercises involving Mumbai’s vendors. The Constitution undoubtedly permits lawful verification and enforcement against unauthorised activities. What it does not permit is collective suspicion, religious profiling or the transfer of verification powers to private actors. As Mumbai moves towards identifying and regulating nearly one lakh surveyed vendors, the constitutional challenge is not merely administrative. It is ensuring that verification remains a neutral legal exercise rather than becoming a mechanism through which broader anxieties about identity, migration and belonging determine who is considered entitled to participate in the city’s economic life.

The risks are not merely hypothetical. In November and December of 2025, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) filed a complaint before the Maharashtra Director General of Police and the National Commission for Minorities after a former BJYM functionary allegedly conducted Aadhaar checks of Muslim fruit vendors at Mumbai’s Malabar Hill market while reportedly asking Hindu vendors to display saffron flags on their carts. According to the complaint, Muslim vendors were selectively required to produce identity documents, described as potential “security threats” and subjected to public scrutiny despite the absence of any legal authority to conduct such verification. CJP argued that the incident reflected a growing pattern of extra-legal identity policing in which private individuals assume state functions and transform ordinary commercial spaces into sites of religious verification and exclusion. The episode serves as a reminder that, in the absence of robust safeguards, questions of documentation and legality can rapidly acquire communal dimensions, making the manner in which Mumbai conducts its verification process as important as the exercise itself. 

Detailed report may be read here.

A case about more than hawkers

What has emerged before the Bombay High Court over the course of these proceedings is not merely a dispute concerning street vendors occupying pavements and public roads. The litigation has evolved into a broader examination of how Indian cities govern public space, how welfare-oriented legislation is implemented, and how the State manages competing claims relating to livelihoods, legality, urban order and citizenship.

The Court has undoubtedly exposed serious administrative failures. Through repeated hearings, it has highlighted the inability of municipal authorities and police agencies to develop a consistent and durable regulatory response to street vending. It has questioned a pattern of cyclical enforcement in which vendors are removed, compliance reports are filed, and the same locations are subsequently reoccupied. It has also forced public authorities to confront uncomfortable questions regarding the implementation of a statute that was enacted more than a decade ago but remains only partially realised.

Yet the proceedings simultaneously reveal a deeper contradiction at the heart of the present controversy. For years, the State failed to complete the very processes through which the legality of street vending was supposed to be determined. Surveys were conducted, databases were created and statutory mechanisms were established, but the larger framework contemplated by the Street Vendors Act remained unfinished. The current effort to distinguish between authorised and unauthorised vendors is therefore taking place within a system whose foundational processes were themselves left incomplete.

This contradiction lies at the centre of the present litigation. The problem confronting Mumbai is not solely the existence of unauthorised hawking. It is also the consequence of a regulatory regime that was never fully implemented despite clear statutory mandates. Many of the enforcement challenges now highlighted by the Court are inseparable from that history.

The significance of the case consequently extends well beyond questions of encroachment. It raises fundamental questions about the capacity of public institutions to implement social legislation, the limits of enforcement-based governance, and the role of identification and documentation in determining access to livelihoods in contemporary India. It also raises important questions about how cities balance the rights of pedestrians and residents with the economic realities of millions of informal workers who depend upon public spaces for survival.

As the litigation continues, its legacy is likely to be measured not merely by the number of hawkers removed from particular roads or footpaths. Its enduring significance may lie in whether it succeeds in prompting the creation of a regulatory framework that is lawful, transparent and effective while remaining faithful to the constitutional commitment to dignity, livelihood and equal treatment. In that sense, the proceedings have become a debate not simply about hawkers, but about the future of urban citizenship itself and the place of informal workers within India’s rapidly transforming cities.

Conclusion: A test of constitutional governance in the city

The Bombay High Court’s hawkers litigation has ultimately exposed a reality that extends far beyond pavements, encroachments and municipal enforcement. At its heart lies a fundamental governance failure: more than a decade after Parliament enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, Mumbai is still attempting to determine who is entitled to vend, where they may vend, and under what conditions. The Court’s frustration is therefore not directed merely at the presence of hawkers on public roads, but at the inability of public institutions to implement a statutory framework that was specifically designed to regulate them.

The proceedings reveal two competing truths that must be reconciled. The first is that public spaces cannot be surrendered to unregulated occupation. Footpaths, roads, railway approaches and civic infrastructure exist for public use, and the State has a constitutional obligation to ensure that they remain accessible, safe and functional. The second is that street vendors are not simply encroachers. They are workers operating within one of India’s largest informal economies, many of whom entered official surveys, participated in statutory processes and spent years awaiting the recognition and protections promised by law. Any attempt to address the former while ignoring the latter risks reducing a complex governance challenge to a narrow law-and-order problem.

What makes the present litigation particularly significant is the contradiction it has brought into sharp focus. The State is now seeking to distinguish between authorised and unauthorised vendors through records generated by a regulatory process that was itself left incomplete. Many of the enforcement difficulties highlighted by the Court today are inseparable from years of administrative delay, institutional inertia and partial implementation of the very legislation intended to resolve them. The crisis confronting Mumbai is therefore not merely one of illegal hawking; it is also the consequence of a regulatory framework that remained unfinished despite clear statutory mandates.

The Court’s recent turn towards identification and verification adds another layer of complexity. Verification may be a legitimate and necessary tool of regulation. However, its constitutional legitimacy will ultimately depend on the safeguards that accompany it. In a climate where questions of documentation, migration, citizenship and belonging increasingly shape public discourse, the distinction between lawful verification and social profiling becomes critically important. The challenge before authorities is not simply to identify vendors, but to ensure that processes designed to enforce legality do not become instruments of exclusion, discrimination or collective suspicion.

The enduring significance of this litigation will therefore not be measured by the number of hawkers removed from a particular road or market. It will be measured by whether Mumbai finally succeeds in building the regulatory system envisioned by Parliament in 2014: one that protects public spaces without criminalising poverty, regulates economic activity without destroying livelihoods, and enforces legality through transparent procedures rather than administrative improvisation. The question before the city is not simply who may sell goods on its pavements. It is whether urban governance in India can remain faithful to constitutional commitments of dignity, equality and livelihood while responding to the genuine demands of order, planning and public accountability. In that sense, this case is not merely about hawkers. It is about whether constitutional governance can succeed where a decade of institutional failure has not.

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The post Who owns Mumbai’s streets? The Bombay High Court, street vendors and a decade of regulatory failure appeared first on SabrangIndia.

More than two months have passed since the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 came into force. The Bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha on March 13, passed on March 24, affirmed by the Rajya Sabha the following day, and received the President’s assent on March 30. Among its many far-reaching consequences and years of un-doing of a movement, the amendment left unresolved the question of what would happen to transgender persons already midway through hormone replacement therapy when the law came into force. Since then, petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law have been filed in the High Courts of Rajasthan, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and now the Supreme Court itself. Trans persons and their allies are fighting back.

On May 4, a bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act, directing that the matter be placed before a three-judge bench to be constituted by the Chief Justice. Notice was made returnable in six weeks to the Union government, all states, and Union Territories through their Advocate Generals and Standing Counsels.

A report in the New Indian Express stated that on May 27, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the Supreme Court to consolidate and transfer all pending challenges from the various High Courts to the apex court. The Chief Justice, however, appeared reluctant.

“Sometimes we can have the advantage of a high court view as well,” the CJI remarked. When the law officer pressed the point, the CJI said he “will see.”

What the 2026 Amendment Changes and Why It Is Contested

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 was Parliament’s legislative response to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (2014) in which the Court explicitly rejected the biological test (the principle that chromosomes or genitalia should determine legal sex) in favour of a psychological test. The Court ruled:

“Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution states that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, which includes one’s right to expression of his self-identified gender.”

“Article 21, as already indicated, protects one’s right of self- determination of the gender to which a person belongs. Determination of gender to which a person belongs is to be decided by the person concerned. In other words, gender identity is integral to the dignity of an individual and is at the core of “personal autonomy” and “self-determination””

In its operative directions, the Court declared that “any insistence for SRS for declaring one’s gender is immoral and illegal.”

The 2019 Act, with its own imperfections, encoded foundational principles that gender identity is self-perceived and that Trans persons have an enforceable right to a certificate of identity based on self-declaration alone.

The 2026 amendment retreats from each of these principles.

The amendment deletes Section 4 (2) of the 2019 Act, which stated that a person recognised as transgender under sub-section (1) shall have a right to self-perceived gender identity. The Statement of Objects and Reasons justifies this deletion by claiming the Act was never intended to protect persons with various gender identities, self-perceived sex/gender identities or gender fluidities, and that legislative policy was always aimed only at those facing exclusion due to biological reasons.

Under the 2019 Act, Trans persons could also apply directly to the District Magistrate for a certificate of identity and medical evaluation was not a prerequisite. The 2026 amendment replaces this with a mandatory two-stage medical filter. First, the applicant must obtain a positive recommendation from a state-appointed medical board, headed by a Chief Medical Officer or Deputy Chief Medical Officer. Then, the DM may seek further evaluation from ‘other medical experts’ at their discretion. Neither stage specifies what criteria the board is assessing, and no appellate mechanism is prescribed. Since the certificate is the gateway to welfare schemes, healthcare, insurance, educational and employment reservations, and government-funded gender-affirming surgeries, those without it are excluded from all these entitlements.

The new Section 7 (1A) also requires every medical institution where gender-affirming surgery is performed to furnish details of that patient to the concerned District Magistrate and the medical board. However, in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court had held that any intrusion into informational privacy must be sanctioned by law, pursue a legitimate state aim, and satisfy proportionality. The burden of demonstrating all three rests on the State.

A few of the key changes have been summarised in the table below for the ease of comparison:

The 2026 amendment also adds four new offences. Abducting and causing grievous hurt to force someone into a trans identity carries ten years to life imprisonment for adults, and life imprisonment where the victim is a child; compelling someone to present as Trans and subjecting them to begging or servitude carries five to ten years for adults and ten to fourteen years where the victim is a child. By contrast, sexual abuse, physical violence, and economic exploitation committed against trans persons remain punishable by a maximum of six months to two years.

In March this year, SabrangIndia had reported that:

“…the language of these provisions is vague and potentially overbroad, as such clauses may inadvertently criminalise support systems that have historically sustained transgender communities, including families, chosen kinship networks, and civil society organisations. There is concern that by framing transgender identity in the context of inducement or coercion, the law risks reinforcing the idea that such identities are not self-originating but externally imposed.”

The full report can be accessed here.

Petitions Filed in High Courts

Kerala High Court

On April 7, Advocate Padma Lakshmy filed two petitions in the Kerala High Court on behalf of Akhil K. Thampi (34) and Neethu (38), plausibly the first petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act. Senior Counsel Arundhati Katju, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that both were receiving hormone therapy, which the hospital had discontinued following the amendment act.

“Because the definition excludes me from the definition of transgender persons. There are people who are getting medical attention. But because of the change in the definition of transgender, the institutions which were earlier providing me medical treatment by way of hormonal therapy…Now the private medical institution is declining to provide it to him. It is like a sudden shock to the system.” counsel submitted.

The petitioners had sought a declaration that Section 2 (k) and related provisions are unconstitutional as violative of Articles 13(2), 14, 15, 19, and 21, and that the right to self-identification of gender is a fundamental right under Articles 14, 19, and 21.

Justice Bechu asked the Additional Solicitor General whether a person already undergoing hormone replacement therapy could be affected by the change in definition, and suggested that rather than staying the provision, the Court could grant relief individually to the petitioners.

“There cannot be a stay of statute. There is a presumption of constitutionality of a statute,” he observed orally.

On April 10, the Court permitted the two petitioners to continue hormone replacement therapy, subject to the condition that they had already commenced treatment.

“Having regard to the entirety of the circumstances, this Court is of the view that an abrupt stoppage of the hormone replacement therapy already started by the petitioner, would lead to adverse and absurd results. Such an object cannot prima facie be deciphered from the statutory provisions, as amended,” the order read.

The orders passed by the Kerala High Court may be read here:

Delhi High Court

On April 8, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia issued notice to the Central Government on a PIL filed by Advocate Dr. Chandresh Jain (W.P. (C) 4587/2026). The petition contended that the amendment undermines fundamental rights and dilutes the legal recognition of gender identity as a matter of personal autonomy, and challenged the State-controlled verification and certification mechanisms introduced by the amendment.

The matter has been listed for further hearing on July 22.

Rajasthan High Court

On April 21, a Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Shubha Mehta issued notice in a PIL filed by the non-profit organisation Nai Bhor Sanstha, which claims to be Rajasthan’s first LGBTQ community-based organisation, working on trans and LGBTQ rights for over two decades.

The matter was listed after four weeks; court records however do not appear to reflect subsequent hearings.

Karnataka High Court

On May 7, Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum of the Karnataka High Court passed an interim order in two separate writ petitions (WP 11652/2026 and WP 11655/2026) filed by two trans persons, one undergoing hormone replacement therapy for several years, another also in the process of changing her name and gender in official documents.

The Court found that the medical records produced prima facie indicated both petitioners had been undergoing hormone replacement therapy since November 11, 2023, and that abrupt discontinuation could have adverse and detrimental consequences on their physical and mental well-being.

It directed that the petitioners be permitted to continue hormone replacement therapy as per the existing medical protocol and that concerned doctors and medical authorities facilitate continuation of such treatment without interruption. It also said that the continuation of treatment be subject to the outcome of the writ petitions and any orders passed by the Supreme Court, including in any transfer proceedings.

The matter was listed for further consideration after the summer vacation which were to take place from Monday, May 4, 2026, to Saturday, May 30, 2026.

The Central Question

At its core, the controversy over the 2026 amendment is a question about the relationship between the individual and the State: can identity be subjected to verification, or must it be recognised as an inherent aspect of personhood?

In NALSA, the Supreme Court placed identity firmly within the domain of personal autonomy. The 2026 amendment moves in the direction toward verification, classification, and administrative control. How the Courts ultimately resolve that tension will determine not only the fate of this legislation, but the constitutional foundations on which the rights of trans persons in India rest. 

Update: HC Proceedings Stayed

On June 15, a bench comprising of CJI Surya Kant and Justice V Mohana stayed proceedings before the four high courts and issued notice on the Union government’s plea seeking transfer of all such cases to the apex court to avoid conflicting rulings on the legislation.

Dr. Chandresh Jain, petitioner in the Delhi High Court, opposed the transfer request and informed the court that as a qualified doctor, his challenge was among the most comprehensive and involved substantial medical and scientific issues. He suggested that if consolidation was required, the matters could be heard together by a High Court, so that the Apex Court would have the benefit of a considered judgment before examining the issues- invoking, in effect, the Court’s own wisdom that High Court rulings often enrich constitutional adjudication at the apex level before it is finally undertaken.

Meanwhile, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta also requested that the matter be placed before a three-judge bench. Is this a step toward hoping that NALSA is overruled altogether? The concern is not without basis as Mehta himself appeared to acknowledge the structural problem when he pointed out that High Courts may find it difficult to take a view contrary to the precedent set in NALSA.

Opposing the submission, Dr. Jain contended that his challenge was not founded on NALSA at all, and in fact questioned provisions introduced through the amendment itself. He argued that the new law was not only unconstitutional but also lacked any credible medical basis.

The High Courts were doing their part by issuing interim protections and beginning to develop a record. With those proceedings now stayed, that work is suspended. The centre of gravity has shifted back to the Supreme Court, and with it, the anxiety about what the apex court will do with a precedent the government appears uncomfortable leaving undisturbed.

It is difficult not to feel that the clock has, in some measure, been turned back. The institutional uncertainty and the dependence of an entire community on the disposition of a single court bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the period before 2014.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Tanishka Shah)

Related Articles:

A Law of Identity, Passed Without Listening: Inside the Transgender Amendment Bill, 2026 and the crisis it has triggered | SabrangIndia

Withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026 NOW! | SabrangIndia

9 years since the passing of the NALSA judgment, has the cycle of discrimination and ostracism finally been broken for the transgender community? | SabrangIndia

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To understand the operational logic of contemporary majoritarian governance, we must look beyond the reassuring rhetoric of constitutional democracy and examine the citizen’s physical body. At its core, citizenship is the violent imprint of the nation-state on the human form. Those whose bodies fall outside this sovereign mark are not merely seen as uncivilised or unmapped; they are structurally marked as targets for systemic elimination. As Giorgio Agamben famously observed, the sovereign sphere includes life primarily through its exclusion, defining a body by its capacity to be killed. Consequently, entry into the polis is never unconditional; it is permanently anchored in the structural possibility of expulsion.

This reality thoroughly dismantles the modern fiction that human rights are inalienable from birth. Proclaiming the existence of natural rights obscures a deeper, more troubling mechanism: the law inscribes itself onto your biological form the moment you enter the world, instantly circumscribing existence within parameters policed by a sovereign who arbitrates what constitutes a protectable and worthy life.

This structural stratification has deep historical and cultural roots. In the ancient Greek polis, women and slaves were entirely excluded from political life and relegated to the realm of bare animal existence (zoe). Similarly, the traditional Indian caste system organised society by dividing populations into those with surplus social capital and those without, marginalising Avarna and Dalit communities and reducing them to beasts of burden through a traditional, ritualistic biopolitics.

While modern democracy apparently extends political rights to all, the underlying exceptions persist. Hannah Arendt exposed this systemic vulnerability by questioning the existence of a foundational “right to have rights.” Without this primary, irrevocable guarantee, any specific civil right can be suspended or revoked by the state at will. A body stripped of this structural protection moves from a state of qualified political life (bios) to a phase of bare life, where its franchise is stripped by opaque administrative measures, and ultimately into the “death worlds” of permanent, unlivable conditions. Such a body becomes depoliticised, de-nationalised, and destined for institutional annihilation (like Umar Khalid and other UAPA victims).

This violent gap between abstract legal definitions and brutal lived experience is vibrantly illustrated by the targeted treatment of the politically or physically vulnerable. The tragic incarceration and structural neglect of the late activist Father Stan Swamy demonstrate how state security pretexts are weaponised to deny basic human dignity and judicial empathy, completely severing formal citizenship from actual human existence.

In the contemporary landscape, dissenting intellectuals (labelled “urban Naxals”) and Indian Muslims are subjected to a terrifying mutation of this power, rendered necropolitical citizens. Through the lens of Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics, the sovereign power to dictate who may live and who must die, the state constructs “death worlds” for politically inconvenient populations.

In life, these populations are pushed to the fringes, harassed by selective administrative tools such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and the UCC, and threatened with legal exile. Yet a supreme irony occurs at the moment of biological collapse: the state recognises their citizenship primarily in death or through the execution of state violence on their lives. The living body is treated as an existential threat that must be subdued, whereas the deceased body is perfectly safe; it can be seamlessly reintegrated into the legal record through meticulous posthumous processing, inquests, and closed case files. Thus, they become citizen by death; a sort of necropolitical citizenship is emerging.

To maintain this absolute control, the state capitalises on the latent vulnerability embedded in every civic body. By levying sweeping charges of treason, waging war against social justice movements, and branding critics or writers as national security threats for merely possessing radical literature, the sovereign instils a pervasive state of fear. The law ceases to function as an objective arbiter and instead becomes a tool of majoritarian discipline. By systematically assigning disparate values to majoritarian and minority lives, the legal system enforces an ethnic democracy, a political ecosystem in which the state manages populations not to protect them, but to legally manage their elimination.

The Judicial Rubber-Stamp: EVM Opacity and the Legalisation of the SIR hunting

This biopolitical shift from public sovereignty to bureaucratic control is not achieved merely through overt violence; it is systematically entrenched through the legal architecture of the democratic state, where judicial mechanisms increasingly insulate the apparatus of power from public oversight. The erosion of the citizen’s democratic agency is dual-pronged: it targets how votes are counted and, more fundamentally, who is allowed to remain on the voting rolls in the first place.

The first mechanism was legitimised by the Supreme Court’s judgment on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) verification. In that case, the Court rejected petitions led by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking 100% physical verification of VVPAT slips. By prioritising automated efficiency over absolute transparency, the Court detached the biological voter from independent validation of their franchise. Public intellectuals such as Yogendra Yadav noted that reducing voting to a state-managed computational loop isolates the citizen. The Court ruled that popular suspicion of proprietary source code is insufficient grounds to disrupt bureaucratic machinery, affirming that the citizen’s expressive political act (bios) is subordinate to executive design.

However, this electronic opacity forms only the defensive perimeter of the state. The offensive biopolitical manoeuvre is found in the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment upholding the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

Delivered by a Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, the judgment unanimously upheld the ECI’s authority to deploy the SIR under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and Article 324 of the Constitution. The petitioners argued that the SIR was a surreptitious, backdoor move to conduct citizenship screening and mass profiling under the guise of purifying electoral rolls. Under the cover of this non-transparent process, a partisan ECI has conducted sweeping purges of voter registries, deleting more than 10% of voters across multiple states and disproportionately targeting minority populations, particularly Indian Muslims.

The profound danger of the SIR judgment lies in its striking internal contradiction, which exposes the thanatopolitical character of the contemporary state. On the one hand, the Supreme Court attempted to provide an alibi for its decision by declaring that deletion from an electoral roll “does not amount to a declaration that the individual is not a citizen of India.” It framed the deletion merely as the “Commission’s inability to be satisfied” for electoral purposes.

Yet, in the very same breath, the Court directed the ECI to forward all such deleted names to the competent authorities under the Citizenship Act within four weeks, setting a strict deadline for the “adjudication of their citizenship” before the upcoming elections.

This directive turns the foundational presumption of regular citizenship on its head. By sending millions of arbitrarily deleted individuals to executive tribunals under the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Court has institutionalised a mechanism that shifts the entire burden of proof onto marginalised individuals. The biological body is stripped of its political skin (the franchise) by an opaque administrative swipe, and is then forced to prove its right to exist before the lethal apparatus of state citizenship laws.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan delivered a strong critique of the verdict, calling the development “very unfortunate for democracy” and explicitly accusing the Election Commission of “working as an agent of the BJP.” Bhushan’s intervention cuts to the core of the institutional collapse: when the apex court validates an opaque, executive-led hunt that strips millions of their political status without prior due process, long after elections have already been altered by these very deletions, the judiciary ceases to be a shield against tyranny. Instead, it becomes the ultimate legitimising organ of fascist majoritarianism.

When the EVM-VVPAT judgment and the SIR verdict are integrated, the full anatomy of Hindutva’s biopolitical state is laid bare. The SIR hunt determines which bodies are excluded from the polis altogether, reducing them to Homo Sacer, bare lives marked for legal and political exile. Meanwhile, the unverifiable EVM matrix ensures that the bodies permitted to remain within the polis are reduced to compliant components of a state-controlled ritual.

Through this dual design, the transition from democracy to an ethnic fascism is completed, not by violating the law, but by rewriting it to ensure that the preservation of majoritarian purity becomes the highest constitutional mandate.

Read the first part of the article here 

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post The Biopolitical Anatomy of Hindutva Fascism: Part II: SIR, EVMs and the Judiciary appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Satyaki was testifying in a Pune Court and made this disclosure in his cross-examination before Special Judge Amol Shinde; who is presently dealing with the criminal defamation case he has filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for allegedly defaming his grand uncle in a speech in London.

Leader of the Opposition (LOP) Rahul Gandhi’s counsel Milind Pawar is presently cross-examining Satyaki in the trial. In his testimony, Satyaki on Monday stated that his granduncle was labelled as a ‘Veer’ in a periodical run by the Gadar Organisation even before he was sent to the Andaman.

“It is true to say that, Savarkar had filed a clemency petition ten times. It is true to say that, he was referred to as a ‘Veer’ when the clemency petition was filed. It is true to say that, Savarkar was referred to as ‘Veer’ even when he submitted clemency petitions ten times. It is not true to say that, it is a contradiction to call someone a ‘Veer’ who has filed a clemency petition ten times. It is true to say that, revolutionists from that same period— Rajguru, Batukeshwar Dutt, and Ashfaqulla Khan— did not file a clemency petition. It is true to say that, Savarkar filed a mercy petition within the first month after being sentenced. I was unaware that Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had petitioned the British government, demanding to be treated as prisoners of war and refusing any concessions or acts of leniency. It is true to say that, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt remained steadfast in their ideology and principles until the very end. I am aware that revolutionist Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt did not compromise on their principles and ideologies in their dealings with the British right to the end,” Satyaki told the court.

Further, Satyaki also told the court that the records pertaining to the 10 mercy or clemency petitions filed by Savarkar are kept in the official government records. He added that the language in these mercy petitions filed by Savarkar did not indicate his ‘loyalty’ to the British regime.

“These clemency petitions used to be forwarded by the prison administration to the British government for approval. It is true to say that the British government had the authority to commute or alter the sentences in any mercy petitions that were submitted. It is true to say that, the authority to reduce or remit a sentence depended on the policy and procedure of the British government. It is true to say that, Savarkar’s clemency petitions are available in government records. It is true to say that, these petitions exist and that I have not filed them,” the testimony reads.

Satyaki has further stated that the British government rejected all of Savarkar’s clemency petitions and in their replies, expressed the apprehension that if Savarkar were released, he would once again participate in the revolutionary movement, leading to the end of British rule.

“It is true to say that, filing a clemency petition to seek a reduction in the sentence was a standard procedure under the British government. It is true to say that, not only Savarkar but other prisoners also filed clemency petitions. It is true to say that, filing a clemency petition was neither exceptional nor illegal. It is not true to say that the language Savarkar used in that clemency petition was one of humility. It is not true to say that the petitions contained words expressing loyalty to the British government. It is true to say that, in that petition, Savarkar requested a reduction of his sentence,” the complainant Satyaki said.

In his testimony, Satyaki further stated that the language Savarkar used in the clemency petitions was in keeping with official protocol. He also opined that the reason revolutionists took up arms was the injustice perpetrated by the British and that Savarkar had expressed the view that had the British implemented reforms earlier, the revolutionists would not have resorted to arms.

During the ongoing proceedings, the Pune court has recorded the excerpts from one of the mercy petitions filed by Savarkar, stating that others sent to the Andaman jail along with him were released but he was not and instead was classified as a Class D prisoner and was subjected to harsh punishments.

“I am not aware that Savarkar signed every petition with the text: ‘I beg to remain, Sir, your most obedient servant, V.D. Savarkar.’ It is not true to say that the process of Savarkar’s release began after these ten petitions were filed. I do not have a report available that makes a comparative study of the mercy petitions filed by Savarkar and those filed by other prisoners, as well as their contents. It is true to say that, filing a mercy petition is an official procedure intended to seek a reduction in the sentence, and Savarkar availed himself of this very process. There is no expert report available to demonstrate that the content and language of Savarkar’s mercy petition were merely formal or part of his strategy,” Satyaki further added to his testimony LiveLaw stated.

Further, Satyaki stated, “It is true to say that, no prisoner was under any obligation to submit a mercy petition. It is true to say that, whether or not to file a mercy petition depended on the preference of the concerned prisoner. It is true to say that, these revolutionists endured great hardships; however, I do not know the names of the specific prisoners among them who filed mercy petitions.”

Satyaki’s cross-examination will continue on July 1.

Background:

The defamation complaint asserts that Gandhi has repeatedly defamed Savarkar on various occasions over the years. One specific incident highlighted was on March 5, 2023, when Gandhi addressed the Overseas Congress in the United Kingdom. The complainant, who testified yesterday, Satyaki Savarkar, has claimed that Gandhi intentionally made wild allegations against Savarkar, knowing them to be untrue, with the intention of harming Savarkar’s reputation and causing mental agony to the complainant and his family. He states that the defamatory speech was delivered in England, but its impact was felt in Pune as it was published and circulated throughout India.

Satyaki, in his complaint, has submitted several news reports and a YouTube link to a video of Gandhi’s speech in London as evidence. He has claimed that Gandhi falsely accused Savarkar of writing a book in which he described beating up a Muslim person, which Savarkar never wrote and such an incident never happened.

Satyaki argued that Gandhi made these false, malicious, and wild allegations with the specific objective of defaming Savarkar and harming his reputation. The criminal defamation application filed by Satyaki demands maximum punishment for Gandhi under Section 500 (Punishment for defamation) of the IPC and seeks imposition of maximum compensation as per Section 357 (Order to pay compensation) of the CrPC.

SabrangIndia has carried multiple analyses and reports of Savarkar and how his attitudes could be dubbed as casteist. These may be read here and here.

Related:

Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva: Book Review

Savarkar’s grandson calls for trade boycott of Muslims: HJS, GOA

Teaser of Film on Savarkar: Lies Galore

The post Yes, Savarkar did file 10 Mercy Petitions before the British, revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh refused to Compromise: Grandnephew tells Pune Court appeared first on SabrangIndia.