"Not A Criminal": Bombay High Court Slams Arrest Of Student Over ‘Operation Sindoor’ Post

Mumbai, Maharashtra: The Bombay High Court has strongly criticised the Maharashtra government and a Pune-based engineering college for arresting and rusticating a 19-year-old student over a social media post critical of Operation Sindoor, calling the actions excessive and detrimental to her future.

During a hearing on Tuesday (May 27), a vacation bench of Justices Gauri Godse and Somasekhar Sundaresan said the student “has to be released” and must be allowed to appear for her remaining semester exams.

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“She is not a criminal,” the court remarked, rejecting the college’s suggestion that she take exams under police escort.

“What is this? You are ruining the life of a student?” Justice Godse questioned the college’s conduct, emphasising that educational institutions are meant to reform, not criminalise, students. “You want to take some action, we understand. But you cannot refrain her from taking exams,” he added.

The student, a second-year engineering student at Sinhgad Academy of Engineering, affiliated with Savitribai Phule Pune University, was arrested and rusticated earlier in May for allegedly reposting a critical comment on Operation Sindoor, which followed the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir.

Her legal counsel noted the urgency of the case, citing that the student’s semester exams were underway and her liberty was being unjustly curtailed.

The student has been lodged in Yerwada Central Jail in Pune and filed a plea calling her rustication “arbitrary and unlawful.” She claimed to have deleted the post within two hours, but not before receiving threats and abuse online.

The court questioned whether the college had followed due process, including asking the student for an explanation before deciding on rustication. The judges expressed concern about the broader implications of punishing free expression among students.

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“This will only radicalise people and nothing else,” Justice Sundaresan observed.

The High Court has directed the student’s legal team to convert the plea into a criminal petition or file a fresh one and agreed to hear the matter urgently.