Response to petitions on illegal detention, clampdown is ready, but needs fine-tuning: Centre

The Union government informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday (October 13, 2026) that its response to petitions alleging illegal detentions, shutdown of public and rail transport, including Metro service, in Delhi on October 10 is “ready” but needs more fine-tuning.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant extended the time for the government to file the reply affidavit by October 15.

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Multiple petitions, including ones seeking contempt proceedings, were adjourned to October 15, 2026 as one of the judges on the Bench was unwell. The Bench rose for the day shortly thereafter.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, said he had gone through the prepared affidavit. It was final, but he wanted to make it “more comprehensive”.

On the petitioners’ request, the Court asked him to share the affidavit, if possible, by October 14, 2026, a day before the hearing so that the lawyers of the petitioners were suitably well-versed with the contents of the affidavit and the hearing would be a meaningful one.

The Court also agreed to urgently hear fresh petitions seeking independent probe and contempt proceedings against authorities on the continued police action against journalists, especially women media professionals, covering the anti-CEC/SIR protests despite an apex court order against it on October 11.

Chief Justice Kant asked the petitioners to cure defects, after which the pleas would also be put up for a comprehensive hearing on Thursday (October 15, 2026). The Court asked for a senior police officer to be present during the next hearing, when allegations of assault on women are raised in the courtroom.

Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association and Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association, of which petitions were adjourned on October 13, gathered at the Supreme Court lawns to express solidarity with the advocates who were assaulted and detained by the police during the October 10 and 11 protests.

A separate petition was orally mentioned by senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia about the “sad” incident which happened in the Supreme Court on October 12, 2026. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders had come to the Supreme Court Registry after filing a petition seeking a probe into SIR and allegations of arbitrary functioning and misconduct against CEC Gyanesh Kumar. Mr. Gandhi’s arrival had drawn a crowd of lawyers around the Registry block within the Supreme Court premises, and the participants of his ‘March for Democracy’ converged in large numbers at the outer gates of the court.

Mr. Bhatia said a petition filed by advocate Divyansh Bisht has sought initiation of criminal contempt against Mr. Gandhi and other Opposition leaders for obstructing justice, a ban on political demonstrations inside court premises, a “neutral framework” to regulate protests near courts, and safeguards against political interference in sub judice cases.

The court also saw the urgent mentioning of petitions filed by organisations of media professionals, including Free Speech Collective and Network of Women in Media, India, which said the violence visited upon journalists, both on October 10, 2026 and October 11, 2026, were “not merely isolated obstruction, but an asserted course of police action comprising unlawful detention, forcible removal, physical assault, manhandling, intimidation, disregard of press credentials and the calculated exclusion and removal of journalists from places where public power was being exercised”.

The petition, filed through Aarthi Rajan, said “unless restrained by law and judicial review, such conduct converts the constitutional freedom of the press into a paper guarantee”.

Network of Women in Media, India, said the “physical handling, intimidation, forcible removal and detention of women journalists in particular interferes not only with newsgathering and freedom of the press, but also with their dignity, bodily integrity, personal liberty and equal ability to participate in the profession”.

“A free press must be able to approach, observe, question, record and report the exercise of public power, especially during protests, dispersals, arrests and crowdcontrol operations. If the police may equate observation with participation, disregard credentials, seize the reporter’s person and remove the reporter from the scene, the resulting account is necessarily filtered by the very authority whose conduct requires independent scrutiny. The chilling effect is immediate: journalists retreat, evidence disappears, public knowledge contracts and democratic accountability is defeated,” the petitions submitted.

Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan said that “documentary proof of students being abused in police stations” have been placed on record before the Supreme Court and should also be taken up for hearing on October 15, 2026.

Another petition filed by a Supreme Court advocate group, Lawyers’ Association for Constitution, along with advocates Fidel Tom and Sumita Hazarika, has alleged that the police were brutal with people who they had detained. Mr. Tom said he was assaulted inside the police station.

The petition, filed through advocate Subhash Chandran, alleged that detention of women after 6 p.m. without any report or permission was in clear violation of their fundamental rights to dignity.

It sought a complete list of persons detained or arrested on October 10 and 11 with the time, place and ground of detention, the officers responsible, the places of custody, the time of release, whether the arrest memo, grounds of arrest and information to a relative were given, and whether production before a Magistrate or release was effected within the statutory time.