Delhi court sends two CJP leaders to Tihar Jail after Jantar Mantar protest

Two senior Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders were sent to Tihar Jail for five days on Wednesday, 14 October, after a Delhi magistrate remanded them to judicial custody over their entry into Jantar Mantar for a protest against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were produced before the special executive magistrate Court at Mandir Marg on Wednesday morning, a day after they were detained along with CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde and other party members.

The court ordered five days of judicial custody for Das and Ranka.

The three had entered Jantar Mantar on Tuesday morning with other CJP members after finding a lightly guarded approach to the area.

The Indian Express reported a group of 14 used a narrow lane leading toward the site and entered through adjoining premises before reaching Jantar Mantar.

There they unfurled the Indian flag and shouted slogans demanding Kumar’s resignation before police detained them.

Police registered charges including trespass, obstruction of a public servant, breach of prohibitory orders and violation of an earlier peace bond.

Das and Ranka had already been detained on 10 October when they arrived in Delhi with CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke for a planned demonstration.

They were later released after furnishing ₹50,000 bonds carrying a condition that they not engage in activity likely to disturb public peace for a year. Police have cited Tuesday’s protest as a breach of those conditions.

Dipke attacked the decision to send the two leaders to jail, saying on X that their offense had been unfurling the tricolor at Jantar Mantar and accusing the government of trying to suppress dissent.

The arrests are part of a broader dispute over both electoral-roll revisions and the right to protest in central Delhi.

The CJP and opposition parties have been campaigning against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, of electoral rolls, which has resulted in about 130 million names being removed during a nationwide verification exercise.

The controversy has already reached the Supreme Court.

Opposition parties marched toward the court this week and submitted a petition seeking an audit of deletions, protection against arbitrary removal and suspension of disputed aspects of the revision process.

The CJP confrontation has also become a dispute over where dissent can physically take place.

Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the capital’s list of designated protest venues and named Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground as alternatives.

The change followed a Supreme Court hearing on 9 October  in which the court said authorities should identify suitable alternative protest sites. Delhi Police later told the Delhi High Court that the denotification followed the court’s directions and recommendations from a Home Ministry committee.

Jantar Mantar is about 2 km from Parliament and has long given demonstrations visibility in the center of national political power.

Ramlila Maidan is roughly 6 km away, CBD Ground about 14 km and Burari about 23 km from Parliament. The alternative sites are also substantially larger, reducing the visual impact of a protest involving the same number of people.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said on X after Tuesday’s action that party members had “sneaked into Jantar Mantar” and declared that authorities could not “denotify the resistance.”

Police say restrictions have been necessary because of concerns about public order and repeated attempts to stage demonstrations without permission.

The government had earlier warned states of what the Home Ministry called potentially serious law-and-order consequences around the 10 October CJP protest and asked authorities to monitor mobilization into Delhi. The scale of the response has itself become part of the political argument.

Thousands of demonstrators and opposition figures were detained during earlier protests, while transport restrictions and barricading disrupted parts of the capital. The Supreme Court had told authorities not to pre-emptively shut Metro and rail services simply because protests were expected, while allowing restrictions if conditions on the ground required them.

Das and Ranka will now remain in judicial custody for five days unless a court grants them relief before the remand period expires. Their imprisonment is likely to deepen the confrontation between the CJP and authorities over the restrictions on protests at Jantar Mantar.