Last month, Delhi’s Jantar Mantar witnessed a massive protest by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). The Supreme Court has constituted a five-member High-Powered Enquiry Committee (HPEC), headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice R. Subhash Reddy, to examine allegations of excessive use of force by police, paramilitary forces, and other security personnel against protesters during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar. The other members are former Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Ravi Shankar Jha, former Delhi High Court judge Justice Shalinder Kaur, former CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla, and retired Meghalaya Director General of Police Dr L.R. Bishnoi. The committee will examine allegations including excessive use of pellet guns, electric batons, lathi charges and tear gas, alleged violence against women protesters, police surveillance, the proportionality of crowd-control measures and the provision of medical assistance and compensation to victims. It will also consider allegations raised by the authorities concerning violence against police personnel and damage to public property. On the issues to be deliberated upon by the HPEC, the apex court has been able to broadly segregate the issues emphasised by the petitioners that call for consideration as follows: i. The use of excessive force and violence against protestors by police authorities and other agencies, including the deployment of pellet guns, electric batons, lathi charges, and tear gas without adequate warning or proportionality, resulting in severe bodily harm and injuries, some of which are alleged to be of a grievous and lasting nature; ii. The question of ensuring a proportionate and measured police response during protests, public gatherings, and peaceful assemblies, so as to strike an appropriate balance between the maintenance of public order and the constitutional right to peaceful dissent; iii. The desirability of banning the use of metallic kinetic projectiles or pellets fired from pump-action rifles or projectile-action guns, having regard to the grave and, at times, irreversible bodily harm occasioned by their deployment against protestors; iv. The necessity of ensuring that police and security personnel wear proper uniforms and visible nameplates at the time of effecting arrests or using force during crowdcontrol operations, so as to secure accountability and enable the identification of individual officers; v. An enquiry into the allegations pertaining to the monitoring and surveillance of protestors by police personnel, and the extent to which such measures, if undertaken, were consistent with the protestors’ constitutional rights to privacy and free assembly vi. The alleged incidents of targeted violence, harassment, molestation and/or any secondary victimisation directed 12against female protestors, which, given the gravity and sensitivity of the allegations, warrant a focused and expeditious enquiry; vii. viii. vii. . The provision of medical and other requisite support, including award of compensation, to victims of alleged police abuse, including the manner and adequacy of such support extended thus far; viii. Regulation of the issuance of blanket prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, so as to prevent their use as a routine or pre-emptive measure that forecloses the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly rather than as a genuine, proportionate response to a real and imminent threat to public order; and ix. The establishment of strict constitutional thresholds and safeguards to prevent Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 from being invoked as an instrument to stifle political dissent and peaceful protest, thereby ensuring that the provision remains confined to its intended purpose and is not permitted to operate as a chilling restraint upon constitutionally protected speech and assembly. Last month, Delhi’s Jantar Mantar witnessed a massive protest by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) over alleged irregularities in the NEET UG paper leak, with thousands of students joining the demonstration.