A democracy’s freedoms depend not merely on constitutional guarantees, but on whether those guarantees can be enforced when the government finds them inconvenient. The confrontation in Delhi over protests against electoral-roll revisions has brought this question into sharp focus. Beyond the conduct of the police, it has exposed a larger institutional challenge: whether the courts can prevent executive authority from shrinking the space available for dissent.

The restrictions imposed around the demonstrations, including mass detentions, transport disruptions and barriers to public assembly, demand scrutiny beyond the immediate justification of security. Governments have a duty to prevent violence and maintain order, but the anticipation of trouble cannot become a blanket licence to curtail fundamental freedoms. Restrictions must rest on lawful authority and satisfy the tests of necessity and proportionality. When a city’s movement is disrupted to contain a protest, the state must explain why less intrusive measures would not suffice. The judiciary’s role is crucial precisely because the police and executive cannot be the final arbiters of the limits of their own powers.

The Supreme Court’s intervention, including directions........

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