Youth protests: SC order allowing FIRs to continue is ‘wholly unacceptable’, says CJP

The Cockroach Janta Party said on Tuesday that a Supreme Court directive from earlier in the day allowing investigation in existing cases registered against those who took part in the youth protests last week was “wholly unacceptable”, and described it as “uninformed”.

Saurav Das, the chief spokesperson for the political campaign, said that the group has a “credible apprehension” that the Union government and Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states may “seek to use and weaponise” the order to continue filing and investigating first information reports against individual protesters and “subject them to great harassment”.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had allowed the authorities in Delhi and other states to proceed with investigations in cases that have been registered.

However, it directed that no coercive action should be taken against protesting students and that minors who had been detained should be released, as long as they did not have any “criminal antecedents”.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant also directed the police authorities to preserve all surveillance camera footage, drone footage and camera recordings relating to the protests as a measure of “abundant precaution”.

Das, however, said in a social media post that the direction allowing investigations to continue “stands in direct contradiction” with the assurance given to the Cockroach Janta Party by the Union government on Saturday...

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