Supreme Court forms panel headed by former judge to probe police excesses against CJP protestors

The Supreme Court on Tuesday constituted a 5-member committee headed by retired apex court Justice R Subhash Reddy to probe allegations of police excesses against Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protestors.

Besides Justice Reddy, the committee will have former Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Ravi Shankar Jha, former Delhi High Court Justice Shalinder Kaur, former CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla and former Meghalaya DGP LR Bishnoi as its members.

The order constituting the committee was passed by a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana.

The committee has been entrusted with the task of fact-finding. The Court also said that the committee will look into the allegations concerning sexual assault and online harassment of female protestors, and victimisation of other vulnerable persons through social media.

The following are the key directions issued by the Court to the committee:

- Probe police excesses as well as protestor violence;

- Give priority to allegations of harassment and molestation of women protestors;

- Examine grievous injuries caused to protestors by police action;

- Ensure preservation of CCTV, drone, body cam and PCR call records from the protests;

- Release detained minors, except those facing grave and heinous charges;

- Protection of protestors' personal data, public disclosure of data barred.

It was also made clear taht police can face departmental action independent of committee's findings and that larger constitutional questions on the protests are to be decided by Court separately, later.

The Court passed the order on a batch of petitions concerning police brutality during protests at Jantar Mantar and in Bihar and other parts of the country over alleged paper leaks of NEET and other examinations.

The petitioners moved the Court seeking pan-India guidelines to ensure that peaceful protests are allowed.

Some petitions also sought action against protesters accused of assaulting police personnel during the demonstrations.

The protests had begun in June on a call by the CJP against repeated question paper leaks. They demanded the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who has since resigned from the position.

The protests gained momentum after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk joined and started a hunger strike in solidarity. Wangchuk was later removed from the protest site and taken to a hospital by the Delhi Police, citing his worsening health condition. He ended his 26-day hunger strike at Medanta Hospital late on July 23.

Delhi Police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) restored to lathi charge, teargas shelling and even use of pellet guns to stop the protestors on "Sansad Chalo" march to the Parliament on July 20.

Pradhan eventually tendered his resignation as minister on July 25 and the protests were called off.

Similar protests were witnessed in Bihar as well, where the police took similar action. A policeman was also witnessed using an AK-47 rifle against the protestors.

This led to a batch of petitions before the apex court.