Supreme Court notice on plea that U.P. Police played ‘agent provocateur’ in Noida workers’ violence

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (Could 19, 2026) determined to look at a petition alleging that the State of Uttar Pradesh weaponised its police equipment to infiltrate and crush a reputable labour agitation in Noida in order to defend company entities indulging in “rampant wage theft”.

A Bench headed by Justice B.V. Nagarathna issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh authorities, the State Police, and the Union authorities for his or her response on a petition filed by Shakambhari, whose 60-year-old activist husband, Satyam Verma, was arraigned in three completely different First Data Studies (FIRs), and slapped with the Nationwide Safety Act (NSA) to frustrate his possibilities of getting bail.

“The State has weaponised its police equipment to arbitrarily crush a reputable labour agitation in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, shielding company entities from legal responsibility for rampant wage theft, and maliciously criminalising the working class and civil society members by dragnet felony proceedings,” advocates Shahrukh Alam and Paras Nath Singh submitted.

The petition stated its trigger in court docket was not simply concerning the unlawful arrest of Mr. Verma, however a “concerted deployment of arbitrary, dragnet and fabricated felony proceedings to silence the labour class and its democratic allies”.

The earlier listening to had witnessed the court docket comment that agitating staff shouldn’t be handled as “terrorists” by the State, and the federal government had a constitutional obligation to make sure a “dwelling wage” to staff. Two protestors whisked away by the police had been produced in court docket on Could 19. Their households had moved the apex court docket looking for their whereabouts. The court docket directed their continuation in judicial custody.  

Relatively than fulfilling its function as a welfare state, the petition stated the State had used its cops to covertly turn into a part of WhatsApp teams of the protestors.

The petition alleged there was “incontrovertible proof” displaying that “State police personnel acted as agent provocateurs to incite the very violence they’re now prosecuting”. The complete prosecution was vitiated when the investigating company itself acted because the “architect of the unrest”, the petition stated. The court docket ought to have an enquiry headed by a retired or sitting choose into the function of the Uttar Pradesh Police, it stated.

The plea stated the protests, spanning April 10–13, had been a spontaneous and peaceable demand by manufacturing facility staff for a statutory minimal wage hike (sparked by a latest 21% improve in neighbouring Haryana), and an finish to 12-hour shifts for a mere ₹11,000 per thirty days.

“Extracting labour under the minimal wage constitutes pressured labour underneath Article 23, as held by the Supreme Court. As a substitute of mediating the dispute successfully to carry actual adjustments or prosecuting the employers for statutory violations, the State unleashed extreme police brutality and criminalised the employees’ basic proper to collective bargaining,” the petition, drawn by advocates Deeksha Dwivedi and Krithika D., stated.

It stated the State has additionally intentionally fragmented a single, steady labour protest into 14 separate FIRs although the allegations, geographical places, and sequence of occasions throughout these FIRs had been equivalent.

“This strategic multiplication topics residents to an infinite cycle of arrests and remands,” the petition argued.

It stated the FIRs must be probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation or a Particular Investigation Workforce. The court docket listed the case subsequent on July 21.