The Delhi Police have released 71-year-old lawyer Rakesh Kishore, who attempted to throw a shoe at Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai during working hours at the Supreme Court on Monday. According to officials, Kishore was released after the Supreme Court registry declined to press charges against him.

Kishore had entered Court No. 1 and allegedly tried to hurl a shoe toward the CJI-led bench. He was immediately restrained by security staff and escorted out of the courtroom. While being taken away, he was heard shouting, “Sanatan ka apman nahi sahega Hindustan.”

Questioned for three hours, then released

After the failed attempt, Kishore was handed over to the Delhi Police. He was interrogated for nearly three hours before being released. Authorities stated that no official complaint had been filed, and hence no legal action was taken.

Kishore was upset over remarks made by CJI Gavai while dismissing a plea seeking restoration of a seven-foot-tall beheaded idol of Lord Vishnu from the Javari temple in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, news agency ANI reported citing familiar sources.

During the hearing, the Chief Justice had remarked that the petitioner should “seek remedy by praying to Lord Vishnu” after declining to entertain the petition.

While refusing to hear the case, the top court observed that the issue concerned a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The bench noted that the ASI was the appropriate authority to handle such matters, not the judiciary.

ALSO READ Who is Rakesh Kishore and why did he try to throw a shoe at CJI BR Gavai?

CJI Gavai’s calm response to the incident

Reacting to the courtroom incident, Chief Justice Gavai told The Indian Express that he instructed the lawyer arguing before him to “just ignore it.” “I am not distracted by all this. You also don’t be distracted and proceed further with the case,” he said.

The CJI added that he was unharmed and largely unaware of the object’s trajectory. “I only heard the sound. Maybe it fell on some table or somewhere,” he said. “I only heard him say, ‘Maine Gavai saab ke taraf pheka tha.’ Perhaps what he threw landed somewhere else and he was trying to explain.”

NEW DELHI: In a shocking and reprehensible incident, a 71-year-old advocate hurled a shoe at the Chief Justice of India (CJI), B R Gavai, during the proceedings in Court Number 1.

The accused was allegedly unhappy with recent remarks made by the CJI during a PIL seeking restoration of a Lord Vishnu idol in the Khajuraho Temple complex in Madhya Pradesh.

Soon after the incident happened on Monday, Delhi Police arrested the accused, identified as Rakesh Kishore, who allegedly took out his shoes and threw them at the CJI around 11.36 am.

As he was being taken away, the lawyer was heard shouting, “Sanatan ka apman nahi sahenge” (We will not tolerate insult of Sanatan Dharma). The CJI remained composed and urged lawyers present in the courtroom to continue with their arguments. “Don’t get distracted by all this. We are not distracted. These things do not affect me,” the Chief Justice remarked.

As per a Delhi Police official, the accused was picked up by the security personnel and handed over to the security unit of the Supreme Court. “He is a resident of the Mayur Vihar area and a registered member of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA),” the senior police officer said.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has suspended Advocate Rakesh Kishore. In an order issued by BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, the council said Kishore’s conduct “is inconsistent with the dignity of the court” and violates the Advocates Act, 1961 and Rules on Professional Conduct and Etiquette. The suspension takes immediate effect, debarring him from appearing, acting, pleading, or practising in any court or tribunal in India.

The BCI directed the Bar Council of Delhi to ensure compliance and notify all courts and bar associations of the suspension. The order also requires the lawyer to file an affidavit of compliance within 48 hours, confirming he will not appear in any case during the suspension period.

Disciplinary proceedings will be initiated against him, and he has been asked to explain within 15 days why the suspension should not continue.

The impunity with which a 71-year old lawyer threw a shoe at a CJI who happens to be Dalit, and was let off without a case being registered, speaks of the serious threats Indian democracy faces in 2025.

The impunity with which a 71-year old lawyer threw a shoe at a CJI who happens to be Dalit, and was let off without a case being registered, speaks of the serious threats Indian democracy faces in 2025.

CJI B.R. Gavai during the State Lawyers’ Conference organised by the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa in Mumbai on May 18, 2025. Photo: PTI/Kunal Patil.

New Delhi: What could be more telling of the dire conditions in which Dalits live in India than the attack on Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai on Monday (October 6)?

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A senior advocate, presumably belonging to a dominant caste group, with barely any noticeable professional record, thought it was appropriate of him to fling his shoe at the highest chair of the Supreme Court, in the name of ‘sanatan dharma’.

That chair is currently occupied by a judge who also happens to be India’s only second Dalit chief justice.

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It did not escape attention that the shoe-hurling targeted someone who was the son of a renowned leader, a prominent Ambedkarite who was present when B.R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in 1956.

This attack lays bare the deepest fault line in India currently.

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On one side are those who swear by the Constitution that has made possible for a person from the most marginalised group to claim the topmost judicial position, and on the other are those who resent this very prospect of such a person being able to inhabit a position higher than his own feudal, and thus traditionally superior, social identity.

Rakesh Kishore, a 71-year-old senior advocate with access to the CJI’s court, apparently was offended by Chief Justice Gavai’s recent remark during a case in which he dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) as a “publicity interest litigation”.

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The PIL sought to restore a dilapidated statue of Lord Vishnu in one of the heritage sites in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. While dismissing it as a stunt, Justice Gavai remarked, “Go and ask the deity himself to do something. If you are saying that you are a strong devotee of Lord Vishnu, then you pray and do some meditation.”

The dismissal itself didn’t stop Kishore, who is coincidentally at the fag end of his career, to indulge in an act that was as crass as throwing a shoe at the CJI. What could have been more convenient for him than to invoke “sanatan dharma” to defend the indefensible?

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The police later said that he had brought a chit that said “sanatan dharma ka apmaan, nahi sahega Hindustan” (‘India will not tolerate insults to sanatan dharma or Hinduism’) – a slogan that he reportedly also raised at the CJI’s court.

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Many would ask, why was the CJI’s remark so offensive to Kishore? It wasn’t even directed at him. After all, Justice Gavai merely asked a supposed believer to ask deeper questions about his faith. But the fact that his comment affronted Kishore, and many others like him who led a social media backlash against Justice Gavai prior to the October 6 incident, speaks volumes about the times in which we live.

Kishore and others may now argue – and will find a great number of supporters in doing so – that it wasn’t in the realm of Justice Gavai, belonging to a converted Buddhist family, to comment on sanatan dharma.

The self-proclaimed protectors of the Hindu faith have come to enjoy an unforeseen degree of impunity that doesn’t merely legitimise but also normalises the idea that nothing is sacrosanct in what they claim is a culture war.

They can abuse an unsuspecting Muslim vendor on the streets, they can flog a Dalit leather worker in full public glare, they can give rape threats to assertive women, they can refuse food to a poor child on the basis of their faith, they can also deride an opposition leader by hurling abuses at their mother, and they can also throw a shoe at the CJI.

There has been a concerted campaign to speak disparagingly of Justice Gavai in recent weeks and slogans and messages online have only allowed the issue of his caste to be constantly under discussion.

Recently, his mother, Kamaltai Gavai, declined an invitation from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to attend an event commemorating its centenary to be held in Amravati in Maharashtra on October 5. She wrote a letter conveying her inability to attend. “I am an Ambedkarite, and I would have spoken out in support of Ambedkarite ideology,” she said in her letter.

Each of Kishore’s acts was symbolic.

Flinging a shoe has been the most common insult that the so-called “upper castes” have employed against “lower caste” people to dwarf them socially. Feeling offended at any remark that is slightly critical of sanatan dharma’s cruel practices has now become common, but has long remained a political mask behind which dominant groups assert their caste status.

By openly writing a note stating his intolerance towards an ‘insult of the Hindu faith’, Kishore had both social and political space to pass off his vacuous act as a heroic move that will likely also be regarded so by Hindutva warriors and caste supremacists, however unfortunate that may be.

Let there be no doubt that by hurling a shoe at the CJI, Kishore and his supporters have undermined the very foundation of the Indian republic that was won after a long bloody struggle, and which promised rule of law, and more importantly equality and dignity for all.

That promise of equality for all, enshrined in Article 14, is the original insult for caste and faith supremacists who lost their traditional privileges in the process and now envy those who found opportunities to rise above their immediate social identities.

The attack was multi-pronged – on the idea of the rule of law in India, on the Constitution of the modern Indian republic and on India’s attempt to modernise and break free from centuries-old oppressive caste practices that continue to simmer.

Contrastingly, Justice Gavai’s response to the attack reflected his tremendous respect for what the Indian republic has achieved. He not only maintained calm, but also nipped the insidious publicity stunt in the bud by not filing a case against Kishore. He continued his hearing immediately after the incident and said, “I am the last person to be affected by such things.”

Although the Bar Council suspended Kishore, Justice Gavai’s office asked the police to not only release Kishore from custody but also return his much-vaunted shoe.

However, what is really conspicuous is that Hindutva supporters online are cheering the act and the BJP hasn’t condemned the attack on the CJI yet, even when opposition parties from the Congress to the DMK have issued strong statements denouncing it. Prime Minister Modi and law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal have criticised the incident, but no concerted effort to slam the incident was made either by the BJP or the Modi government, both known for their well-oiled publicity machinery.

Nor did we hear of the Modi government insisting on lodging a case in this serious matter, in spite of the serious precedent it may set in our constitutional scheme. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was enacted for preventing any public or private assault, physical or verbal, on any member belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes with a view to demean or insult them.

Just last year, in the run-up to the general elections, the BJP had been forced to go on the defensive and deny the charge of wanting to change the Constitution, as several top leaders and MPs of the party made statements asking for a mandate in 2024 that would allow the party to amend the Constitution.

Those statements were seen as an attempt to attack the essence of the Constitution, which gives all castes, faiths and creeds an equal status. The Constitution was adopted in 1950 but accepted only very grudgingly by the RSS, the ideological parent of the BJP.

It is perhaps the fear of a similar backlash that prompted some BJP leaders to make a statement and to be seen decrying the act.

As a deceitful faith warrior enacted one of the most shameful episodes in the history of Indian democracy, two questions stare at every Indian citizen. Could there have been a more evident record of who stands where in the caste matrix of India? And, what is the worldview the present political regime in India, in the saddle for 11 years in Delhi, is empowering?

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