Centre asks Supreme Court to quash FIRs against NEET protesters

The Union government has moved the Supreme Court seeking to quash FIRs registered against protesters over alleged violence during demonstrations against the NEET paper-leak controversy in Delhi and other states. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the plea on Monday, 31 August 2026, before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. The Centre has asked the Court to use its Article 142 powers. The hearing is listed for 1 September 2026, which makes the matter a live-today filing for this masthead.

The plea sits inside a larger, bitter afterlife of the NEET paper-leak protests. Demonstrations that began as anger over exam integrity later produced police cases over alleged street violence. Families of victims and groups alleging police brutality have kept the dispute alive beyond the exam calendar. One such group, Cockroach Janta Party, has announced a further protest march in Delhi on 5 September from India Gate toward Delhi Police Headquarters, saying families of NEET victims and of those alleging police excesses will join.

What the 31 August public note does not do is publish a station-by-station FIR inventory or a numerical tally of accused. This cutting therefore refuses to invent FIR numbers, police-station lists, or injury counts that are not in the tip. The verified core is institutional: the Union government wants the Supreme Court to extinguish protest-related FIRs through Article 142; the Solicitor General has mentioned the matter; and a hearing date of 1 September is on the board.

Article 142 is extraordinary constitutional power. Asking the Court to quash FIRs wholesale is an argument that the criminal cases themselves have become part of the political and social injury of the NEET crisis, or at least that their continuation would defeat complete justice. Critics of such pleas typically warn against erasing alleged street violence; supporters argue that criminalising protest after a national exam scandal compounds the original grievance. The Supreme Court’s 1 September hearing is where those arguments will be tested, not this page.

For students and parents still living inside the NEET wound, the dual calendar is stark. One track is courtroom: can FIRs fall under a top-court quashing plea? The other track is street: another march is already called for 5 September in central Delhi. Neither track, on the present record, rewrites the exam result itself. Both keep the paper-leak protest era in the news well after the question papers were printed.

This cutting records the Centre’s move, the Solicitor General’s mention, the Article 142 ask, the 1 September listing, and the announced 5 September march. It invents nothing else.