Why Indian law students don't want top judge at their graduation ceremony

India's top judges often make news for their rulings or pronunciations on weighty matters of law.

But Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has recently made headlines for comments that have angered the youth and, in recent days, prompted students from two premier legal universities to demand that he should not be invited to be the chief guest at their convocations.

The current row started on 23 July when dozens of outgoing students from Nalsar University of Law in the southern city of Hyderabad wrote an email to the college authorities asking that CJI Kant should not be invited to preside over their passing-out ceremony. The demand has since been supported by about 450 of the university's 1,400 students, including many juniors.

The invitation to the chief justice is in keeping with tradition and for aspiring lawyers, the presence of the country's top judge at their convocation is usually seen as a matter of pride.

But Nalsar students were upset over reports that a day earlier, the chief justice had turned down a request to hold urgent hearings on police brutality during the 20 July parliament march led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Delhi. Kant has since said he was misquoted.

In fact, the CJP's birth was also rooted in a remark attributed to the chief justice amid reports that he had used terms like parasites and cockroaches to describe some youth. Kant had said he was misquoted then too.

The crackdown against CJP protesters in the heart of the capital city, where police and paramilitaries were seen attacking and beating up unarmed students who were demanding education reforms with batons, wooden sticks and teargas, had shocked Indians and made global headlines. At least four youths had also sustained pellet gun injuries – in what was described as the first time such guns were used in the capital city for crowd control.

Indian media reports , external said when a lawyer raised the matter before Kant on 22 July, the chief justice said, "don't waste our time" and when he was asked to watch videos of police excesses, he said "we don't have time".

The statement drew a backlash from opposition parties, senior lawyers and activists - and the Nalsar students' email came a day later.

"We feel that receiving our degrees from a dignitary who appears dismissive of serious allegations of police brutality against protesting citizens sits uncomfortably with what we have been taught to value during our time at Nalsar," the students wrote. "We would, therefore, request the university to strongly reconsider the choice of chief guest for this convocation."

Kant later clarified that he had not refused to hear the petition and only asked for it to be filed in a proper manner. Since then, the Supreme Court has begun hearing cases involving allegations of violence and apprehensions that police could use face-recognition technology to harass protesters.

But the anger against the chief justice has refused to die down - it, in fact, gathered steam last Thursday after the Bar Council of India chairman, Manan Kumar Mishra, threatened to bar Nalsar's graduating students from enrolment.

"No student who graduated from Nalsar will be enrolled until further orders from Bar Council of India," he announced. Mishra also asked the university to submit a report on students who were behind the campaign to not invite the CJI.

The backlash against Mishra, who's an MP from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, was swift and widespread, including from Chief Justice Kant who said the students had a right to protest and that the Bar Council had no business getting involved in what was "a dialogue between law students and me".

Within hours, Mishra backtracked on his threat.

"After considering the representations and reactions of senior advocates, members of the Bar, law students and public spirited citizens, and being satisfied that the 2026 batch of Nalsar, Hyderabad, had no role in any disturbance or movement, the Bar Council of India has decided to close the proceedings altogether. No further action is required," he wrote , external on X.

In an apology letter , external addressed later to "dear young friends", he wrote: "If anything connected with the present controversy, any of my words, or letter, has hurt the feelings of our law students, I sincerely regret and apologise for the same."

His apology has failed to pacify the students and, at the weekend, students and alumni from a second premier law university - National Law School of India University in Bengaluru (NLSIU) - issued an open letter condemning Mishra's comments.

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The NLSIU students said they did not want Mishra to attend their convocation ceremony, that they stood in solidarity with Nalsar "in their request to reconsider the choice of the chief guest" and added that for the same reasons, they did not want the chief justice to be invited for their convocation either.

Kant on Sunday said he had "never accepted the Nalsar invitation" to be the chief guest at their convocation so the "question of me attending does not arise", Times of India reported.

But his clarification is unlikely to be the last word on the controversy. Student anger against the chief justice's reported remarks has been bubbling since May. It all began with an off-the-cuff remark in court when the top judge likened some unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites.

"There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment and don't have any place in the profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become RTI [right to information] activists, some of them become other activists, and they start attacking everyone," legal website LiveLaw , external quoted him as saying.

The remark invited a huge backlash and even though Kant later clarified that it was taken out of context and that it was aimed only at youth with "fake and bogus degrees", the damage was done.

It was this comment that led to the birth of Cockroach Janta Party, an online satirical movement, which saw millions of students and young people sign up.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke earlier told the BBC that he launched the online platform because he was "a bit disappointed and baffled" by the comments of the chief justice of India "who is the custodian of our constitution, of our rights".

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Even though it's not a formal political party, the CJP has ended up posing the most formidable challenge in recent years to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with weeks of protests in the heart of the capital, Delhi.

The protests ended on 25 July after Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from the post of education minister - the CJP had insisted that he take moral responsibility for repeated paper leaks of key exams.

As the latest row shows, the fallout of the protest continues to reverberate in the country's premier law institutes - and the top court of India.

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