Two recent judicial interventions should concern anyone who believes that the State must be firm in dealing with disorder but equally careful in dealing with dissent. The Allahabad High Court’s decision to cancel the detention of student and activist Aakriti Chaudhary under the National Security Act raises questions about how the police built their case. Chaudhary was accused of instigating stone-pelting and arson during the Noida workers’ protest this April, but the State could not immediately produce the video it claimed established her role. The court also pointed out several procedural lapses in the sequence of her arrest and the manner of issuing notices. It described the State’s version as a “concocted story” and even ordered compensation.
Similar concerns are reflected on a wider scale in the Supreme Court’s intervention in the cases arising from student protests during July 20-25. It ordered the closure of FIRs connected to the protests lodged around the country and barred fresh cases from being opened. At the same time, it allowed proceedings against those identified as having serious criminal antecedents. That distinction is important. The court did not say that students are immune from criminal law. It held that bona fide participation in a protest cannot by itself justify treating a young person as accused and putting their future at risk.
The police response, however, needs closer examination. A protest can turn violent, and those responsible must be investigated and prosecuted. But being at a protest does not make a person responsible for the violence. The police have to show what the individual accused actually did; a mere allegation cannot stand for proof.
The Allahabad judgement also draws attention to the way the detention was carried out. The safeguards laid down by law cannot be treated as formalities, especially when the State applies a law as stringent as the NSA. The case raises a fundamental question: did the circumstances warrant the use of a law that permits preventive detention? The manner in which it was invoked makes the question difficult to avoid.
The larger issue is whether the State is exercising its coercive powers with the restraint and legal discipline that democracy requires. In these two cases, the courts have had to insist on proportionality, evidence and due process that should have guided the executive response to the protests in the first place.