Amnesty International on Friday sentenced the decision of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi dated July 15 to invoke it § 3 paragraph 2 from India’s National Security Act (NSA), which effectively gives police the power to hold people in administrative detention without procedural safeguards.
The decision to rely on this division of the NSA comes in the middle of the crowd protests in India, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), who have called for accountability for alleged exam paper leaks that affected millions of students. The protests began in May after answers to India’s medical school entrance exam, known as the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test NEET (UG), were leaked, resulting in more than 2 million students having to retake the test.
After extending the invocation of Section 3(2) of the NSA until October 18, Amnesty International India Chief Executive Officer Aakar Patel said:
“This deeply worrying move is a violation of human rights that could further aggravate the situation in Delhi. It gives the police a variety of discretionary powers to detain people for up to 12 months on completely arbitrary grounds. Fair trial rights guaranteed by international human rights law are essentially suspended as detainees are denied legal representation and are not required to be informed of the reasons for their detention for up to 15 days.”
The Delhi Police has maintained that this is purely a routine administrative action, but Patel is concerned given previous cases in which Indian police have abused this power, such as: Anti-CAA protests in 2020 and the 2026 workers’ protests in Noida. The leak of the exam papers has caused extreme academic stress among test takers who had spent years preparing for the grueling exam, resulting in at least twenty students committing suicide.
The grief of the students’ families and friends spurred the CJP to intensify its nationwide protests and eventually forced the government to meet their demands, including a 5-point exam reform charter and adequate compensation for the affected families. At the height of the protests, Delhi Police used tear gas and batons against demonstrators as they attempted to march toward India’s parliament.
India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant had made disparaging comments about the protesters, calling them “unemployed youth and activists who are attacking the legal system.” He even went so far as to call them “cockroaches,” a term that activists say highlights the authorities’ blatant disregard for the democratic right to peaceful expression.
Under the NSA, police may arrest a person without charging or bringing him or her to trial if there is suspicion or belief that he or she may be carrying out an activity that directly undermines public order or national security. Once detained, the person is not entitled to legal representation before the three-member Advisory Board, which examines the reasons why their detention was ordered.
The NSA has been widely criticized as violating Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)which guarantees the right to freedom and security of the person, and Article 14 of the ICCPR, which guarantees the right to a fair trial.
