‘Don’t take it so sentimentally’: CJI tells lawyer who complained about ‘activities’ of Cockroach Janta Party, fake law degrees

Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one. Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary. The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. Updated - May 25, 2026 12:25 pm IST - NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday (May 25, 2026) asked a lawyer to not take the continued online frenzy over his reported use of the word “cockroach” in a court hearing so “sentimentally”. The Chief Justice was reacting to a lawyer, advocate N.K. Goswami, who expressed anxiety at the manner in which a courtroom observation from the Bench is being “distorted” online despite a clarification from the top judge. Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s reported references to “cockroach” in reference to fake law degree holders during the hearing of a writ petition on May 15 spawned a public furore and a viral online platform, Cockroach Janta Party. The Chief Justice had clarified the next day in a statement that he was misquoted by sections of the media and had the greatest concern and respect for the youths of the country. On Monday, Chief Justice Kant said there was “no grave urgency” to entertain a writ petition filed by an apex court lawyer seeking a probe into the “activities” of a “digital-political formation”, Cockroach Janta Party, and the commercial exploitation, trademark appropriation and monetised circulation of oral remarks made in court proceedings. Advocate Raja Choudhary has arraigned the Union government, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Bar Council of India and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as respondents in the case. Mr. Choudhary, represented by advocate Rajesh Singh Chouhan, has said the petition was not an attack on fair criticism, democratic dissent, satire, and constitutionally protected free speech, but a challenge to organised commercial exploitation and distortion of solemn court hearings into a “viral spectacle” online. He has said judicial hearings and exchanges between judges and lawyers metamorphose into clipped fragments, outrage algorithms, trolling cultures, meme warfare, emotional mobilisation, and monetised virality. “Isolated fragments of oral proceedings are selectively clipped, meme-ified, mimicked, commercially circulated, and transformed into viral digital content detached from constitutional and procedural context,” the petition has said. Who is Abhijeet Dipke? Inside the viral Cockroach Janta Party movement The petition said that vernacular, culturally direct and non-elite modes of institutional speech associated with rural and non-metropolitan traditions are increasingly subjected to disproportionate ridicule within elite digital ecosystems. It argued that the spontaneous use of metaphorical expressions like ‘cockroach’ only reflected institutional frustration and procedural anxiety at the deterioration of legal professionals’ standards. The petition has sought a CBI probe into the proliferation of fake law degrees across the country. Mr. Choudhary has asserted that metaphorical references involving animals, insects, vermin, creatures or symbolic imagery have historically existed within literature, jurisprudence, constitutional discourse, political theory and legal philosophy. Such expressions, he said, were recognised tools for expressing institutional anxiety, bureaucratic alienation, procedural disorder, collapse of communication between individuals and authority systems and symbolic commentary upon social behaviour. He has flagged that Indian constitutional discourse and judicial traditions have historically employed metaphors like ‘jungle raj’, ‘watchdog’, ‘guinea pig’ to describe governance failures, institutional accountability and constitutional anxieties. Copyright© 2026, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account plea

‘Don’t take it so sentimentally’: CJI tells lawyer who complained about ‘activities’ of Cockroach Janta Party, fake law degrees

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‘Don’t take it so sentimentally’: CJI tells lawyer who complained about ‘activities’ of Cockroach Janta Party, fake law degrees

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