CJI says cockroach remarks misused to 'mislead' India's youth. Were they?

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said his controversial remarks likening some young people to "cockroaches" were "misquoted" and circulated with "malicious intent" to mislead India's youth.

But the controversy is no longer merely about a clipped courtroom exchange. The remark spawned the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), while subsequent episodes at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and NALSAR University of Law have pointed to a wider unease among young people about the country's top judge.

In an interview with DD News, Justice Kant said clips of court proceedings were increasingly being circulated on social media without context. "My comment was misquoted and misused. What was not said is presented as though it was said. This is extremely unfortunate. Particularly, it is a major malicious attempt to mislead the youth of the country," he said.

The CJI was referring to remarks he made on 15 May while hearing a matter concerning lawyers with allegedly fraudulent or unrecognised degrees. The exchange was not, as the CJI now explains it, directed at young people generally. But the words he used in court were considerably broader.

"There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment or have no place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists and they start attacking everyone," CJI Surya Kant said. He also referred to such people as "parasites" who "attack the people" and "attack the system".

The distinction matters. The CJI may have intended his remarks to refer to people who enter the legal profession using fake degrees and subsequently attack the system. But the actual words placed unemployed "youngsters" alongside cockroaches and activists. The resulting backlash therefore cannot simply be attributed to an edited social-media clip.

Within 24 hours, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old Boston University graduate, announced the Cockroach Janta Party, inviting those who had been called "cockroaches" to reclaim the label. What began as satire rapidly became a huge online youth movement, tapping into anger over unemployment, examination controversies and a perceived disconnect between young Indians and mainstream politics. Reuters reported that the movement had amassed more than 23 million Instagram followers by late May, most of them under 28.

The joke then acquired an additional layer: social-media users began calling Justice Kant the CJP's "co-founder" — a title he had inadvertently earned by supplying the movement with its name.

That a remark by the head of the country's highest court could become the founding joke of a youth political movement is itself worth examining. It suggests that the remark landed on fertile ground. The CJP did not create unemployment, examination anxiety or distrust of institutions. It gave a generation already preoccupied with those issues a particularly potent metaphor.

The CJI's subsequent encounters with students have only complicated the picture.

In early August, TISS postponed its 86th convocation just days before the event, at which Justice Kant was scheduled to be chief guest. The institute cited "unforeseen circumstances" without elaborating. Students, however, said the event had been postponed amid fears of protests over the CJI's proposed presence.

Then came the far more consequential NALSAR episode. Around 450 students at the Hyderabad-based National Academy of Legal Studies and Research opposed Justice Kant's invitation as chief guest at their convocation. Their concerns included his handling of proceedings concerning alleged police excesses against protesters and his refusal, at the mentioning stage, to examine video evidence cited by the students.

A university's graduating law students questioning the suitability of the Chief Justice of India as their convocation guest would, by itself, be a striking development. What followed was extraordinary.

The Bar Council of India directed state bar councils not to enrol the entire NALSAR 2026 graduating batch as advocates, effectively threatening the professional future of students over the controversy. The order was withdrawn after a backlash, although the BCI said an inquiry would continue. The Supreme Court subsequently criticised the intervention, with the CJI himself asking, "who are they to interfere?"

There is another fact that cannot reasonably be treated as incidental: BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra is a BJP Rajya Sabha member from Bihar. The BJP fielded Mishra for the Rajya Sabha in 2024, and he was elected unopposed. He was subsequently re-elected BCI chairman for a seventh consecutive term. That does not establish that the BCI's action was politically motivated. But it inevitably raises a question of perception.

It also produces an uncomfortable irony in the CJI's current appeal to young people to exercise their constitutional responsibilities. "You are on social media, print media or any form of media or you are simply a citizen. All of us have rights and constitutional duty and responsibilities," the CJI said. He urged citizens to remember their responsibilities and "ensure that harmony prevails in society".

The appeal is unobjectionable in itself. Citizens do have responsibilities. Social-media misinformation is real, and judicial proceedings should not be deliberately distorted for clicks, political mobilisation or commercial gain.

Justice Kant also referred to the Supreme Court's recent restrictions on the unauthorised dissemination, reposting, uploading and monetisation of recordings of judicial proceedings, saying transparency should not become commercial exploitation. "We are committed to bringing transparency into the judiciary. There should be transparency. As a further step in this direction, we started live streaming in the Supreme Court," he said.

But live-streaming and public scrutiny come with an unavoidable consequence: people will react to what judges say. Some reactions will be unfair. Some will be satirical. Some will be politically motivated. Others will be entirely sincere. The answer cannot be to conflate all criticism with misinformation.