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The Supreme Court uploaded an order on 20 August 2026 constituting a five-member High-Powered Enquiry Committee (HPEC) to conduct an independent fact-finding probe into alleged police excesses during student protests.
The order was passed on 18 August 2026 by a three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana.
The committee is chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Justice R. Subhash Reddy and includes two former High Court judges, a former CBI Director and a retired Director General of Police.
It covers the student demonstrations of 20 July 2026 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi and in Bihar, linked to protests over alleged examination paper leaks including NEET.
The panel must treat alleged targeted violence, harassment and molestation of female protesters as its top priority and submit periodic interim findings instead of one final report.
Establishes the Supreme Court of India, whose orders bind all authorities under Article 141 and Article 144.
The writ jurisdiction under which citizens move the Supreme Court directly for enforcement of fundamental rights, the usual doorway for petitions of this kind.
Empowers the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary for doing complete justice, the provision generally relied on when the Court creates monitoring or fact-finding bodies.
Governs children in conflict with law; an offence is 'heinous' if the minimum punishment prescribed is imprisonment of seven years or more, which is the line the direction on detained minors tracks.
A restrictive state measure must pursue a legitimate aim, be suitable and necessary for it, and be the least intrusive means available, balanced against the right restricted.
Article 19(1)(b) guarantees the right to assemble peaceably and without arms, subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(3); crowd-control cases sit exactly on this line.
The direction on detained minors and on preservation of PCR records connects to the long line of Supreme Court guidelines on arrest and detention.
A court-constituted fact-finding committee differs from a statutory commission of inquiry appointed by the executive; both are recommendatory, but the former reports to the Court.
The underlying grievance, alleged paper leaks in national examinations, links to the central law on unfair means in public examinations and to the National Testing Agency.
GS Paper II > Polity and Governance > Judiciary, fundamental rights, accountability mechanisms
General Awareness > Current events and Indian polity
General Awareness > Current affairs
General Awareness > Internal security and civil-police relations
A fact-finding body constituted for an independent examination of disputed events, here by the Supreme Court and reporting to it.
A constitutional test requiring that a restrictive measure pursue a legitimate aim and use the least intrusive means to achieve it.
Under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, an offence for which the minimum punishment prescribed is imprisonment of seven years or more.
Police Control Room call logs, a contemporaneous record of complaints and deployment used to reconstruct the sequence of events.