Privilege versus free speech case in Supreme Court disposed of in half an hour after two-decade wait

Case records show the long-pending clash over legislative privilege and speech was deemed academic after the Assembly withdrew the resolution years ago. File | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

After a pendency of well over 20 years in the Supreme Court, a seven-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant took less than half-an-hour on Tuesday (October 6, 2026) to dispose of as infructuous a reference related to questions linked to legislative privilege being used to choke free speech, arising out of a 2003 Tamil Nadu Assembly resolution to arrest editors of The Hindu for an editorial criticising then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant found no point in going for lengthy hearings after learning from the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly counsel, senior advocate Raju Raachandran, that the resolution against the newspaper had been withdrawn in 2004.

The Constitution Bench said the withdrawal of the resolution escaped the notice of the Supreme Court.

On the petitioners’ suggestion, the Court left the larger and substantial questions of law open for a future occasion in an appropriate case.

Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi remarked light-heartedly that the Court had set two records, shortest hearing and the quickest one by a seven-judge Bench.