Are NALSAR Students Too Ignorant, Gullible or Politically Motivated Under the Influence of the Left?
By S.N. VERMA
The controversy surrounding the decision of a section of students of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad, to oppose the invitation of the Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant, to their convocation raises a question much larger than the controversy itself.
Are these students genuinely protesting on the basis of a principled disagreement with the Chief Justice, or has a perfectly understandable concern about certain judicial observations been converted into a political campaign.
And, more importantly, have the students themselves been adequately informed about the precise context of the much-publicised “cockroach” remark before taking such an extreme position?
Reports indicate that several hundred NALSAR students objected to the CJI being invited as chief guest at their convocation. The controversy subsequently escalated when the Bar Council of India initially sought to restrict enrolment of the graduating batch, a decision which was later withdrawn. The Supreme Court itself intervened and questioned the BCI's action, making clear that students cannot be penalised merely for expressing dissent.
The BCI's initial response, though disproportionate, however it does not mean that the students' interpretation of the CJI's remarks should escape scrutiny.
What exactly did the CJI say?
This is where the controversy requires some factual discipline.
On May 15, 2026, during a Supreme Court hearing, Justice Surya Kant made observations concerning persons entering the legal profession and other public-facing professions through questionable or fake degrees. Some media reports presented his observations as referring broadly to unemployed youngsters and reported his use of the expression “cockroaches” in that context.
The CJI subsequently issued a clarification.
He specifically stated that his criticism was directed at persons entering professions through “fake and bogus degrees” and not at the youth of India as a whole. He also stated that he had great respect for Indian youth and regarded them as an important resource for the country's future.
More recently, while explaining the controversy, the CJI again stated that the discussion before the Court concerned persons who had allegedly entered the legal profession through fake or unrecognised law degrees and that the “cockroach” analogy was used in that context.
That clarification cannot simply be wished away.
The crucial question: was the entire youth of India called “cockroaches”?
The answer, on the CJI's own clarification, is plainly no.
The controversy appears to have acquired a life of its own because a particular portion of an oral judicial observation was detached from the factual setting in which it was made.
There is an enormous difference between saying:
“All Indian youth are cockroaches”
and saying, in substance:
persons who enter a profession through fraudulent or bogus qualifications and then misuse that profession are like parasites or cockroaches.
The first would be an extraordinary and sweeping condemnation of an entire generation.
The second is a criticism of a particular category of persons.
Those two propositions cannot reasonably be treated as identical.
Fake law degrees are not an imaginary problem
The concern regarding fraudulent entry into the legal profession is not frivolous.
The legal profession occupies a position of exceptional public trust. An advocate is expected to possess not merely a formal qualification but professional integrity, competence and fidelity to the administration of justice.
If a person enters the profession on the basis of a fake or fraudulent law degree, the problem is not merely academic. Such a person potentially compromises the administration of justice itself.
The Bar Council of India and State Bar Councils have, from time to time, undertaken verification exercises concerning the credentials of advocates. The fact that questions concerning fake law degrees have repeatedly arisen demonstrates why the issue deserves serious attention.
Indeed, the controversy surrounding the 2015 case of Delhi's then Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar, whose law degree was alleged to be fabricated and who was subsequently arrested and resigned from office, illustrates how serious fraudulent educational credentials can become when they reach public institutions.
The CJI's concern, therefore, cannot fairly be characterised as an attack upon the entire youth merely because the word “cockroach” was used in a particular judicial context.
Should NALSAR students not have understood the distinction?
This is where legitimate criticism of the protest begins.
NALSAR is among India's premier institutions for legal education. Its students are not ordinary observers of legal controversies. They are future members of the Bar.
A law student is expected to appreciate the most elementary principle of legal interpretation: context matters.
Judicial observations cannot responsibly be understood by extracting one sentence or one expression and disregarding the facts, submissions and discussion surrounding it.
If students of a premier national law university interpret an observation concerning fake-degree holders as an allegation against the entire youth of India, one is entitled to ask whether the controversy is the result of genuine misunderstanding—or whether the remark has been deliberately transformed into a political narrative.
I would prefer to believe that students of NALSAR are neither ignorant nor gullible.
That leaves another possibility: political activism may have overtaken legal analysis.
That possibility deserves open discussion.
What about Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and similar cases?
There is certainly a legitimate democratic debate over bail, preventive detention, prosecution and the treatment of dissent.
Some sections of civil society, students of educational institutes particularly JNU etc under influence of leftist student organisations often have expressed their anger against conviction and hanging of certain terrorists like Afzal Guru and now they often express their anger against Judiciary for denying bails to Umar khalid and Sharjeel Imam and have demanded their release or bail.
Question is, are these NALSAR students too under influence of leftist student organisations upset with CJI headed Judiciary refusing bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel imam and hence they are refusing to accept degrees from CJI?
Would these students too one day approach the Supreme Court at midnight?
The provocative question may nevertheless be useful.
If tomorrow one of these students becomes a practising lawyer and represents a person convicted or accused of terrorism, will he or she too approach the Supreme Court urgently to protect that person's constitutional and legal rights?
The answer may be yes or no, but it is also true that one may expect from somebody under influence of leftist ideology to come to rescue of even convicted terrorists because for them, human rights of even convicted terrorists may take precedence over anything else.
The danger of the “spin”
The most troubling aspect of the controversy is the possibility that an isolated expression has been converted into an entirely different political proposition.
If the CJI had actually called the entire youth of India “cockroaches”, criticism would have been entirely understandable.
But if the observation was directed at a particular category of persons entering professions through fake or bogus qualifications, and if the CJI subsequently clarified precisely that point, then continuing to represent the remark as an attack upon India's entire youth becomes difficult to justify.
A law student should be particularly cautious about such a transformation.
Law is about interpretation.
Context is law's oxygen.
A sentence cannot always be interpreted without reference to the proceeding in which it was uttered.
Conclusion
I do not believe that NALSAR students should be condemned merely for protesting against the CJI.
Nor do I believe that the BCI was justified in threatening the professional future of an entire graduating batch because of a student protest.
But I do believe that the “cockroach” controversy deserves a more intellectually honest examination.
The CJI has expressly clarified that his remarks were directed at persons entering professions through fake or bogus degrees and were not a condemnation of India's youth.
If that is the context, then portraying the observation as an insult to the entire youth of India is, at the very least, a highly incomplete representation of what was said.
For students of a premier law university, the question is not whether they should support the CJI.
The question is whether they should read before they react, understand before they condemn, and analyse before they politicise.
If they do that, they will become excellent lawyers—irrespective of whether they are politically Left, Right or somewhere in between.
But if ideology begins to determine the interpretation of facts, law and judicial proceedings, then the legal profession—not merely NALSAR—has reason to be concerned.
The future of the Bar should belong neither to the Left nor to the Right.
It should belong to the Constitution, the rule of law and professional integrity.
