'No Writ Petition Was Filed': CJI Surya Kant Rebuts Reports on Jantar Mantar Student Protest Case
- Jul 24
- 2 min read
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant clarified that no writ petition was filed over the Jantar Mantar student protest, calling media reports claiming he refused to hear the matter "false", "irresponsible" and "reckless".
By Pranjal Gupta
New Delhi, July 24: Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Friday dismissed media reports claiming that he had refused to admit a plea challenging the police action against students protesting at Jantar Mantar and demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak.
The CJI clarified that no writ petition had ever been filed before the Supreme Court in the matter. He said that only a letter representation had been submitted to the court, which could not be treated as a writ petition because it had not been formally filed.
Expressing concern over the media coverage, the CJI termed the reports "irresponsible and reckless".
"In the last two days, a completely false statement was made that a matter was filed, and the media is absolutely free from all responsibility, falsely reporting that the Chief Justice refused to list the matter. Till morning 10 AM, not a single page has been filed. It was one representation... sent by that Mishra or someone. How can I treat the representation as a writ petition? And people start recklessly reporting this," the CJI remarked.
What Had CJI Said?
The observations were made after Senior Advocate Shoeb Alam mentioned another matter for listing before the court.
Earlier, on July 22, Advocate Narendra Mishra had orally mentioned his letter petition addressed to the CJI regarding the police action against the student protesters.
Declining to entertain the request, the CJI told him, "Don't waste our time, don't waste your time." When the advocate said he had videos of the police action, the CJI responded, "We are not interested in videos; we don't have time to watch."
