SC intervenes on Orissa HC orders linking bail to police station cleaning

The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the Orissa High Court and a trial court’s orders directing Dalit and Adivasi activists to sweep police stations as a condition for bail.

The case will be taken up for hearing by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday, May 4.

The case pertains to bail orders issued by Justice SK Panigrahi of the Orissa High Court and two judges of the Rayagada district court between May 2025 and January 2026. Out of the eight such orders issued, five were enforced.

The accused in these cases were detained for protesting against a bauxite mining contract awarded to Vedanta Ltd by the then Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in 2023. The project, spread over roughly 1,560 hectares in the Tijimali hills – nearly half of which is forest land – will require the displacement of two villages and over 140 families who farm the land or herd cattle in the region.

Civil society organisations and lawyers have described the conditions as casteist, arguing they effectively compel individuals to perform labour that is historically imposed on oppressed caste communities.

Such conditions exceed judicial authority because they are unrelated to the legitimate purpose of bail and instead replicate historically stigmatised caste roles.

In July 2025, over 86 citizens, lawyers and activists wrote to the Supreme Court asking it to take up the matter suo motu and recall the bail conditions, describing them as “not free from the prejudice against the weaker sections of our society.”