Nation

IIE DIGITAL: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Friday refuted reports claiming that the Supreme Court had refused to list a petition seeking its intervention over alleged police excesses against students protesting in Delhi. Clarifying the matter during mentioning hours, CJI Kant said that no petition had actually been filed before the court and that it had received only a lawyer’s representation.

The CJI made the clarification while presiding over a three-judge bench, which also included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana. The remarks came as Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam was seeking the listing of an unrelated matter.

Addressing the reports, CJI Kant said that a “completely false statement” had been circulated over the past two days suggesting that a matter had been filed and that the Chief Justice had refused to list it for hearing. He said he had personally checked the court records until 10 am on Friday and found that no case had been filed.

“Not a single page has been filed in the Supreme Court,” CJI Kant said, explaining that the court had received only a representation from a lawyer. He questioned how such a representation could be treated as a writ petition and criticised what he described as reckless reporting of the matter.

The CJI was referring to an incident on Wednesday, when a lawyer attempted to bring the issue of alleged police action against protesting students before the Supreme Court. Since the lawyer had sent a letter rather than formally filing a petition, the bench declined to entertain the matter and asked him not to waste the court’s time.

The lawyer continued to press the issue and told the bench that he had a collection of videos that he could present to support his claims. The CJI, however, said the court was not interested in watching the videos and did not have the time to do so.

The clarification comes amid ongoing protests at Jantar Mantar over alleged NEET paper leaks and irregularities in the examination process. The demonstrations reportedly turned violent earlier this week after police stopped protesters attempting to march towards Parliament. Police used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd, while several protesters were detained. The Delhi Police subsequently registered multiple FIRs in connection with the clashes.