Delhi High Court orders unblocking of Cockroach Janta Party's X Account after Centre says no objection

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered that the X account belonging to Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) be unblocked after the Central government conceded that it has no objection to the same.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma passed the direction to unblock the account after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for Central government and said that the account can be unblocked.

SG Mehta added that the account was blocked in view of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

"It was blocked at a time when NEET examination was to take place. Lakhs of students were to appear. Several posts (on X) which would have created chaos among student and parents. Now the examination is over," Mehta said.

Justice Sharma said that the account should then be unblocked.

"I have no difficulty. I just want everyone to be more circumspect," the SG said.

The Court then allowed the plea filed by CJP founder Abhijit Dipke.

Dipke moved the Court challenging the government’s blocking order, which cited national security reasons to ban the handle.

The petition was filed through advocate Nakul Gandhi of NG Law Chambers.

According to The Indian Express, the Central government ordered the blocking of the X account of CJP in the wake of inputs from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) that raised “national security concerns”.

The report said that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) asked X to withhold the account under Section 69 (A) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

During the previous hearing of the case on May 29, the High Court had declined to immediately order restoration of the account. The Court said it can grant such relief only after hearing the government since the issue has far reaching consequences.

The Court added that it will examine whether X can be directed to place on record the blocking order after Union of India files a comprehensive response.

The Union government did not object to the unblocking today.

The “Cockroach Janta Party” emerged recently as a satirical online movement that gained traction across social media platforms, particularly among younger users.

The online movement gained massive popularity, with hundreds of thousands of followers on X and over 22 million followers on Instagram.

The movement was born out of Supreme Court proceedings held on May 15 during which the Bench headed by CJI Surya Kant expressed concerns over unemployed young lawyers drifting away from practice toward social media and RTI activism. CJI Kant said that such "youngsters like cockroaches" were becoming parasites in society.

"There are youngsters like cockroaches who are not getting employment in the profession. Some are on social media, some become RTI activists," the CJI said.

The CJI later clarified that his observations were directed at individuals entering professions through forged qualifications and fake degrees, not unemployed young Indians generally.

The collective was started by Dipke, a resident of Boston, USA. It uses political satire to comment on issues such as unemployment, institutional accountability and media freedom.

The CJP has been protesting at Jantar Mantar demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over leak of NEET and other question papers.

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