CJP Protest And Its Suppression: A Constitutional Analysis
Manjula Kumari, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow
ABSTRACT
The right to peaceful assembly and protest are the foundational pillar of democracy, guaranteed and protected under Article 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution. The right is not absolute it may be subjected to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) and 19(3). Assembly that turn unlawful, violent, or threaten public order may be dispersed by the police under statutory provisions governing unlawful assembly. The persistent legal difficulty lies in the rightful exercise of fundamental right of protest and crowd control measures adopted by the police force while dispersing crowd turning violent and boundary between lawful crowd control and excessive or arbitrary force. This paper examines the constitutional and statutory framework governing protest and dispersal of unlawful assembly in India, and applies this framework to the widely reported 2026 “CJP” demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, in which student-led crowd defying dispersal orders were met with baton charges and tear gas as they attempted to march toward Parliament. The paper argues that while the police retain a lawful power to disperse assemblies that breach prohibitionary orders or turn disorderly, that power is conditioned on graduated, proportionate, and accountable use of force, and the constitutional limits on the right to protest. The 2026 episode illustrates recurring tensions between operational policing imperatives and constitutional guarantees that Indian jurisprudence has repeatedly sought to reconcile.
Keywords: Jantar Mantar, Police accountability, Proportionality, Right to Protest, Use of force.
