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justice ujjal bhuyan
New Delhi: Justice Ujjal Bhuyan of the Supreme Court on Saturday, July 25, said more people are being criminalized for mere dissent or exercising their right to protest.
More people are being charged with crimes over just exercising their right to voice dissent, he said. Courts do provide much-needed relief in a lot of cases, he said, but too often the relief is too late. And the bail provisions are so strict that they have ended up stifling the voice of dissent.
"It will not be erroneous to say that the space for expressing a dissenting opinion is shrinking in India," Justice Bhuyan said. "The right to voice dissent and to protest peacefully are basic rights enjoyed by every citizen. Debate and dissent are what give a democracy its sustenance. Unfortunately, even simple, everyday activities are now being criminalized."
He made the remarks to students at the Justice GP Singh Memorial Lecture at the National Law Institute University in Bhopal.
Justice Bhuyan cited a real-life example where fourteen Muslim men were arrested over the eating of chicken Biryani while breaking their Ramzan fast on a Bhopal-based boat on the river Ganga.
“Eating chicken biryani is no crime. It can’t be. There is no law that you can’t eat chicken near the Ganga,” he said. “Yet they were arrested and sat in jail for three months.”
He also recalled situations when people were given bail, but they were ordered not to attend any public gatherings, post on social media, or leave the country. He said such orders conflict with normal rights.
Justice Bhuyan also pointed out a ruling from the Bombay High Court in July 2025. In that order, the court had dismissed a request from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to stage a protest in Azad Maidan over the crisis in Gaza.
In dismissing the request, the court had urged people to look at the issues of their own country and not the crisis in Gaza, and he had also questioned their patriotism.
Justice Bhuyan said that he was puzzled by a judge questioning the logic of people wanting to protest something going on outside the country.
He said that judges are not exempt from criticism and that they are not immune to having their judgments examined by other legal professionals.
"Once a judgment is delivered, it must be examined closely, and a critique should be made if required. Critiquing a judgment is not the same as critiquing a judge," he said.
He also cited several recent SC judgments, one of them about EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) reservation, and encouraged the students to be critical of those judgments rather than blindly accepting them.
"If all we do is say to judges, 'Sir, that was brilliant, you're a great mind,' how can this system get better?" he asked.
Justice Bhuyan said that if judges want people to keep placing their trust in them, they have to look inward too.
"We praise ourselves and say how powerful/ great the Indian Supreme Court is; this is something we shouldn't be saying about ourselves. You know, it's up to the people to look at it. It depends what people think of the judiciary today, 75 years into being a republic," he said.
He concluded by saying that introspection is what is needed to bring about change in the system, and that healthy debate - even if it includes criticism of the judiciary - is only going to make democratic institutions stronger.
