Delhi Police Seeks Quashing of NEET-UG Protest FIRs: What the Article 142 Plea Signifies

On August 31, 2026, a three-judge Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant declined to halt a proposed protest march by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in central Delhi ahead of the BRICS Summit scheduled for September 12–13. Within hours of that order, the Delhi Police moved an urgent application urging the apex court to invoke Article 142 of the Constitution to quash all First Information Reports (FIRs) registered against students who participated in the NEET-UG paper leak protests. The Bench agreed to list the application on September 1, signalling that the dispute over the scope of police discretion in prosecuting protesters has now entered the highest constitutional forum at a delicate diplomatic moment. ## What Happened on August 31 The Supreme Court found no "compelling circumstance" to interfere with CJP's planned march on September 5. Chief Justice Kant's Bench held that "everybody should follow the law, the regulatory measures, and respect each others' rights," placing the primary responsibility for law and order on the Union government and the Delhi Police. In the afternoon, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta orally mentioned an application by the Delhi Police seeking to invoke Article 142 of the Constitution to quash FIRs registered across police stations from Barakhamba Road to Parliament Street to Connaught Place following a crackdown on July 20. The Bench tagged the plea with the main batch of petitions on the NEET-UG protests, scheduled for September 10. The critical facts are: - The FIRs arraigned charges of rioting, attempt to murder, and damage to public property against student protesters - Delhi Police said it "no longer wished" to pursue the FIRs but sought permission to file fresh, specific FIRs against 2,873 individuals with criminal antecedents present at the protest site - CJP counsel Nizamuddin Ahmed urged the court to defer the proposed march for 10 days until September 15, allowing the summit to proceed unhindered ## Why the Police Shifted Stance The reversal of prosecutorial position, from aggressively pursuing thousands of FIRs to seeking wholesale quashing, raises a basic question about who controls criminal prosecution in the national capital. FIR registration and investigation are governed by Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which makes registration mandatory upon disclosure of cognisable offence. Once registered, the State takes ownership of the prosecution. The flip-flop suggests the original crackdown, in which charges including attempt to murder were levelled at student protesters, may have been disproportionate from inception. The police now implicitly concede that mass criminalisation of demonstrators, many of them NEET-UG candidates protesting a paper leak scandal, was excessive. ## The Article 142 Question Article 142 of the Constitution empowers the Supreme Court to pass orders "as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it." The Delhi Police seeks to ride this power to extinguish criminal liability for thousands of accused. The provision has been used controversially before, most prominently in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, where the Court used it to cap compensation. In criminal matters, the Court's power under Article 142 intersects with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which empowers the High Court to quash FIRs to prevent abuse of the legal process. The police's choice to approach the Supreme Court rather than the Delhi High Court is itself an indicator of political sensitivity. The legal questions now before the Bench are stark: - Whether Article 142 can be invoked at the instance of the prosecuting agency to quash FIRs it itself registered - Whether such a power extends to cases involving charges of rioting, which is a cognisable and non-compoundable offence under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code - Whether the Court can carve out an exception for 2,873 named individuals while granting relief to unnamed thousands ## The BRICS Shadow Over the Protest The timing, days before a multilateral summit where India hosts leaders of Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa, is not coincidental. The CJP cited the Centre's failure to withdraw FIRs as justification for resuming street protests. The Bench's reluctance to halt the march rested on the principle that protest is a constitutionally protected activity, subject only to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) of the Constitution in the interests of public order. Delhi's unique administrative structure complicates this further. Public order falls under the State List (Entry 1, List II), while the Delhi Police is constituted under the Delhi Police Act, 1978 and the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946. The Union government controls law and order in the capital through the Lieutenant Governor, creating an institutional arrangement where elected local government has limited policing powers. This explains why the FIR-quashing application moved directly from the Delhi Police to the Solicitor General, bypassing any elected Delhi government channel. :::callout Did You Know? Article 142 was used in the 2010 Bhopal Gas Tragedy case to reduce compensation from $1.3 billion to $470 million, a decision later widely criticised as the Court doing precisely what it was asked not to do, substituting the executive's commercial wisdom for the Court's constitutional duty. The same power is now sought to extinguish prosecution against student protesters. ::: ## What Changes Now The Supreme Court now faces a doctrinal fork: it can treat the Delhi Police's plea as a legitimate invocation of Article 142's complete justice mandate, or it can insist that criminal prosecution, once initiated, can only be quashed through established statutory mechanisms, the High Court under Section 482 CrPC or the inherent powers of trial courts. If the Court quashes the FIRs, it sets precedent for any future government to use Article 142 as a tool to retrospectively legitimise overreach by its own police. If it refuses, it sends a message that the State cannot weaponise criminal process and then seek constitutional absolution when public opinion turns. The deeper question, however, is institutional. The NEET-UG paper leak that triggered the original protests remains under investigation. The National Testing Agency has not been restructured despite repeated leaks.