Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Tuesday (May 19, 2026) said peaceful and lawful protest was everybody’s right, but dissent should not break the peace or occupy public space and bother ordinary folks.

The Chief Justice, heading a three-judge Bench, was responding to a petition seeking protection against registration of criminal cases against young people protesting the naming of the newly operational Navi Mumbai International Airport.

The petition seeking the protection of right to personal liberty and the right to express dissent came amid the ongoing protests to rename the Navi Mumbai International Airport to ‘Lokneta D.B. Patil Navi Mumbai International Airport’.

“Young people are protesting. If criminal cases are registered against them, their future will go,” counsel for the petitioner-NGO Prakashjhot Samajik Sanstha submitted. The Bombay High Court had earlier dismissed a similar plea for protection.

“They should not threaten and create law-and-order problems. Anybody has the right to peaceful and lawful protest. That is permissible in law. But that does not extend to coming on the streets and creating problems for the common man. That should not happen,” Chief Justice Kant observed.

The court said it could not intervene in the choice of name of an airport. The government authorities in a democracy would take their time, ultimately realise they do have to take a decision and fix on a name. “We have our limitations. That would be policy-making,” the CJI said.

The golden rule

The CJI’s observations were in tune with a 2018 stand of the Supreme Court that the golden rule was that the right to protest should be balanced with the right of the residents to live peacefully. The observation had come in a decision lifting the ban on protests at Jantar Mantar and Boat Club

“Democracy and dissent go hand in hand, but then the demonstrations expressing dissent have to be in designated places alone,” the court had noted.

In its 2020 judgment in the Shaheen Bagh case, a three-judge Bench had held that fundamental rights did not live in isolation. “The right of the protester has to be balanced with the right of the commuter. They have to co-exist in mutual respect,” the court had said in a judgment which found the indefinite “occupation” of a public road by the Shaheen Bagh protesters unacceptable.

The court had said the protest, considered an iconic dissent mounted by mothers, children and senior citizens of Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, had become inconvenient to commuters.