Supreme Court Holds Rare Sunday Sitting on Delhi Protest Detentions and Metro Shutdown

The Supreme Court convened a special Sunday sitting on October 11 to hear challenges to the police action during Saturday's protest in Delhi, with a bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana listed to take up the matters at 10.30 am. Weekend hearings are rare, and this one brings together a habeas corpus plea for detained opposition leaders and a contempt case accusing top officials of ignoring the court's own order on public transport.

The hearing follows the Cockroach Janta Party's attempt to rally at Jantar Mantar against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, which police blocked with large-scale detentions (see our earlier coverage).

The habeas plea

Senior advocate and Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Menaka Guruswamy has challenged the preventive detention of opposition leaders, among them four former chief ministers. Her petition argues that preventive powers cannot be used to choke off the fundamental right to peaceful protest, particularly against leaders who have governed states. It also says several politicians were picked up from their homes and moved to undisclosed locations before they could reach the protest site.

The contempt case

A separate petition by advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi names Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chairperson D Thara. It alleges they defied the court's October 9 direction against a complete shutdown of public transport. In that hearing, a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, which included Justices Bagchi and Mohana, said authorities could regulate services for security reasons but should not impose an outright prohibition.

Police had originally sought the closure of 57 Metro stations, later trimmed to 45. Those stations stayed shut for about 25 hours before reopening late on Saturday, while Delhi-bound mail and express trains were also disrupted. The petition argues that this amounted to the very blanket ban the court had warned against.

More pleas filed overnight

The legal pressure grew on Sunday morning. According to LiveLaw, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha sought urgent directions against what he described as illegal detentions and house arrests of protesters, students, lawyers and politicians, alleging disproportionate use of force. Another contempt plea, by advocate Amit Prasad, accuses police of violence against unarmed citizens and says officers on duty were not wearing name tags.

Delhi Police has said Saturday's detentions were preventive steps for public safety and traffic management. Estimates of the number held during the day ranged from about 3,000 to more than 7,000 by Saturday night, far above the morning figures. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were due to be produced before an executive magistrate at the Delhi Cantonment police station on Sunday morning.

The detentions have also drawn international attention. The UN human rights office raised concern about the mass detentions, and India's mission in Geneva rejected those remarks as misplaced and an unwarranted interference in the country's internal affairs.

Why the bench's response matters

The protests are not over. The CJP has called a fresh march to Jantar Mantar, Delhi Traffic Police has kept diversions at around 30 points in central Delhi, and opposition parties have announced another demonstration for Monday. Whatever the bench says on detentions, transport curbs and police conduct will effectively set the rules for those gatherings, and test how far authorities can use preventive detention against political leaders in the middle of a heated fight over the voter rolls.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.