Delhi- The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has condemned the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site, calling the move a serious setback for the right to peaceful assembly and democratic accountability. The party also condemned the detention of its leaders and volunteers on Tuesday morning after they entered the site carrying the national flag and demanding the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls.

The announcement of denotification came on October 12, the same day CJP representatives approached Parliament Street Police Station to submit a letter seeking a date and time for their proposed peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar. The party had offered the police the choice of scheduling the demonstration and sought a response within 24 hours. The subsequent order that Jantar Mantar would no longer be a designated protest venue has raised serious questions about access to public spaces for peaceful dissent.

On Tuesday morning, CJP co-convenors Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das, National Organisation In-charge Ajinkya Shinde and other party members entered the site and were detained by Delhi Police.

“You cannot denotify the resistance. If the government believes that removing Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest sites will silence people demanding accountability, it has misunderstood what this movement stands for. Jantar Mantar is not merely a location on a map. It is where citizens have gathered to question those in power, and no administrative order can erase that democratic impulse,” said Abhijeet Dipke, Founder and National Convenor of CJP.

Jantar Mantar has served for decades as a prominent venue for public demonstrations, including campaigns for transparency and anti-corruption, veterans’ demands for One Rank One Pension, protests by women wrestlers and farmers, and student-led agitations. CJP said removing the site from the list of designated protest venues risks weakening the visibility of public dissent by moving demonstrations away from the heart of the capital.

“You cannot ask citizens to approach the authorities for permission to protest and then change the rules while they are seeking that permission. We went to the police station to ask for a date for our demonstration. Our demand was clear: tell us when we can hold a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar. Instead, the site was denotified. We will not accept a system in which the right to protest becomes meaningless in practice,” said Ashutosh Ranka, Co-Convenor of CJP.

Mehr Pasricha, CJP Policy Lead and National Spokesperson, said, “Cockroaches raised the Tiranga at Jantar Mantar today to show that this country and Jantar Mantar do not belong to just one person. Jantar Mantar belongs to the people, to the country, and we all share the responsibility for it. Hands off Jantar Mantar! You cannot take away our constitutional and fundamental rights. The government must not remain under any delusion that we will back down.”

CJP also questioned the scale of police restrictions and detentions surrounding the recent demonstrations. The party said that detentions, barricades and restrictions on peaceful assembly must not become instruments to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights. It stressed that any detention must have an independent legal basis and comply with applicable law; denial of permission for a protest does not, by itself, establish grounds to detain everyone associated with it.

Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution protect freedom of expression and the right to assemble peacefully and without arms, subject to constitutionally permitted restrictions. In Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court considered the balance between peaceful protest and the rights of other users of public spaces. CJP said that regulating demonstrations must not become a means of extinguishing the practical exercise of the right to peaceful dissent.

The party reiterated that its demand for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation remains unchanged and that it will continue to challenge the denotification of Jantar Mantar. CJP said it would not abandon its demand for electoral accountability or accept the removal of a historic protest venue as a reason to retreat from peaceful democratic action.