Justice Ujjal Bhuyan Warns Against Criminalizing Dissent in India

Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan warned that public spaces for dissent in India are shrinking and that peaceful protests, campus activism, and environmental demonstrations are increasingly being criminalized. Speaking at the fifth Justice G.P. Singh Memorial Lecture at the National Law Institute University in Bhopal, he argued that treating constitutional freedoms as criminal acts undermines democratic values.

Justice Bhuyan specifically condemned the use of restrictive bail conditions, such as bans on social media use and public meetings, characterizing them as tools for judicially enforced self-censorship. To illustrate judicial absurdity, he cited a case where young Muslims were jailed for three months for consuming chicken biryani during an Iftar gathering on the Ganga river.

Beyond the criminalization of protest, the judge defended the separation of powers. He stated it is fundamentally wrong for a former Chief Justice of India to join the Rajya Sabha to bridge the gap between the judiciary and the executive. He concluded by urging universities to prioritize critical thinking and the questioning of judicial decisions to improve the legal system.