With Great Power Comes Great Proportionality: Delhi, Dissent and the Duty to Make Room

Spider-Man’s best-known lesson is usually quoted with the interesting half left out. Power brings responsibility, yes, but the useful corollary for public law is that the responsibility grows with the power. When a State can close metro stations, divert trains, seal borders and switch off mobile internet across a neighbourhood, the burden of justifying each step grows with it. Constitutional lawyers call that idea proportionality, and it sits at the centre of what happened in Delhi in early October 2026.

§ 1What was reported

The account below relies on a statement issued by Amnesty International on 9 October 2026,¹ which collects reports rather than court findings, and on the Supreme Court’s interim direction of the same day. Readers should treat the facts as reported, not adjudicated.

• The protest. A group calling itself the Cockroach Janta Party (the name is spelled variously in reports), student unions and opposition parties have reportedly been demonstrating since 2 October against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, and demanding the Chief Election Commissioner’s resignation.
• The refusal. Delhi Police said permission to protest at Jantar Mantar on 10 October had not been granted.
• The detentions. Student union members and party activists were reportedly detained, placed under house arrest outside Delhi, or stopped while travelling to the capital.
• The closures. Reported restrictions included metro station closures, suspended bus services and sealed borders for large vehicles.
• The shutdown. A 24-hour mobile internet suspension across a 4 km radius of protest sites in central Delhi, according to a notification cited by Amnesty.
• The Supreme Court. The Court directed the Union not to suspend train services to Delhi altogether or shut Delhi Metro stations, said services should be regulated on the principle of proportionality, and asked the Centre to consider an alternative venue with adequate facilities.

This commentary takes no position on the merits of the revision exercise or of the protesters’ demands. Those belong to the Election Commission, Parliament and, where properly invoked, the courts. The question here is narrower: how may the State respond to a protest?

§ 2The right, and its limits

Article 19(1)(a) and (b) protect speech and the right to assemble peacefully and without arms. Article 19(3) allows reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order, among other grounds. “Reasonable” is where the work is done: a restriction must pursue a legitimate aim, be suited to it, and go no further than necessary.

The Supreme Court has long been wary of permission regimes that hand the police unguided discretion. In Himat Lal K. Shah² it accepted that assemblies may be regulated, but not by rules that leave the decision to an officer’s unstructured satisfaction. In Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan³ it declined to endorse a blanket ban on protest at Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan, asking instead for a balance between protesters and nearby residents.

§ 3Permission or notification?

Amnesty’s Aakar Patel argues that demonstrations should not need prior police permission, and that organisers should at most notify the authorities. The legal difference is practical. Under a notification norm, the police must show why a particular protest has to be restricted. Under a permission norm, the protesters must show why they deserve to be heard.

Notification is a courtesy the State may reasonably ask for. Permission is a veto it must justify.

Whether the refusal on 10 October was reasoned, recorded and communicated in time to be challenged is not yet clear from the public record. That, more than the refusal itself, is what a court would ask.

§ 4The shutdown problem

In Anuradha Bhasin⁴ the Court held that orders suspending internet services must be published, reasoned, limited in time, proportionate and open to review, and that indefinite suspension is impermissible. A 24-hour order is time-limited, which helps. The remaining questions are whether it was published, whether it recorded why less restrictive options such as targeted policing were not enough, and whether anyone reviewed it.

A 4 km radius in central Delhi also sweeps in people who are not protesting at all: shopkeepers taking digital payments, journalists, patients calling for help. Proportionality asks the State to count them too.

§ 5What the Supreme Court’s partial relief signals

The Court did not decide the larger right-to-protest question. It reached for proportionality as a working rule to keep rail and metro services running, which treats the ordinary commuter’s mobility as part of the balance. Its suggestion of an alternative venue is sensible, but a venue is not a substitute for the right. A protest no one can see or reach is a muted protest.

A workable template follows from the cases above:

1. Notify, do not license. Make notice the default and allow refusal only on recorded grounds.
2. Reasons in writing. Communicate them early enough for the organisers to seek relief the same day.
3. Least restrictive means. Prefer targeted measures to city-wide closures.
4. Publish and review. Make shutdown and closure orders public, time-bound and reviewable.
5. A usable venue. Give protesters a place with access, facilities and visibility.

§ 6Conclusion

Order and dissent are not opposites. The State’s job is to protect both, and the test of a mature democracy is not whether it can close a city, but whether it had to. Great power, great proportionality: the burden of justification belongs to whoever holds the switch.