A petition was filed on Sunday (May 24, 2026) in the Supreme Court to probe the “activities” of a “digital-political formation”, the Cockroach Janta Party, and the commercial exploitation, trademark appropriation and monetised circulation of oral remarks made in court proceedings.

Opinion | Interpreting the ‘rise’ of the Cockroach Janta Party

The petition filed by a Supreme Court advocate, Raja Choudhary, has arraigned the Union Government, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Bar Council of India, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as respondents in the case.

Mr. Choudhary, represented by advocate Rajesh Singh Chouhan, said the petition was not an attack on fair criticism, democratic dissent, satire, and constitutionally protected free speech, but a challenge to organised commercial exploitation and distortion of solemn court hearings into a “viral spectacle” online.

Judicial hearings and exchanges between judges and lawyers metamorphose into clipped fragments, outrage algorithms, trolling cultures, meme warfare, emotional mobilisation, and monetised virality, the petition said.

“Isolated fragments of oral proceedings are selectively clipped, meme-ified, mimicked, commercially circulated, and transformed into viral digital content detached from constitutional and procedural context,” the petition said.

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s reported remark on “cockroach” in reference to fake law degree holders during the hearing of a writ petition on May 15 spawned public furore and a viral online platform, the Cockroach Janta Party. The Chief Justice had clarified the following day in a statement that he was misquoted by sections of the media and had the greatest concern and respect for the youths of the country.

The petition said that vernacular, culturally direct, and non-elite modes of institutional speech associated with rural and non-metropolitan traditions are increasingly subjected to disproportionate ridicule within elite digital ecosystems.

It argued that the spontaneous use of metaphorical expressions like ‘cockroach’ only reflected institutional frustration and procedural anxiety at the deterioration of legal professionals’ standards. The petition has sought a probe by the CBI into the proliferation of fake law degrees across the country.

Mr. Choudhary asserted that metaphorical references involving animals, insects, vermin, creatures or symbolic imagery have historically existed within literature, jurisprudence, constitutional discourse, political theory and legal philosophy.

Such expressions, he said, were recognised tools for expressing institutional anxiety, bureaucratic alienation, procedural disorder, collapse of communication between individuals and authority systems, and symbolic commentary upon social behaviour.

“In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka used vermin imagery not literally, but symbolically to describe alienation, bureaucratic violence, and institutional absurdity,” Mr. Choudhary said.

He flagged that Indian constitutional discourse and judicial traditions have historically employed metaphors like ‘jungle raj’, ‘watchdog’, ‘guinea pig’ to describe governance failures, institutional accountability and constitutional anxieties.

Not only the preservation of institutional reputation, but constitutional governance itself in the age of viral algorithmic media was at stake, the petitioner said.