Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday, May 16, 2026, said a section of the media had misquoted his oral observations from the previous day’s hearing in a case that turned into a sharp exchange over a lawyer’s push for senior advocate designation.
Kant said he was speaking about people who enter the Bar with fake and bogus degrees, not about young Indians. “I am pained to read how a section of the media has misquoted my oral observations made during the hearing of a frivolous case yesterday,” he said in his clarification. He added that he had “specifically criticised” those who join the legal profession with forged credentials and said similar people had also entered the media, social media and other professions, where they “are like parasites.”
The clarification came after remarks made on Friday, May 15, 2026, by a bench of Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi during a hearing linked to the designation of a lawyer as a Senior Advocate. The bench reprimanded the petitioner lawyer for aggressively pursuing the designation and questioned the language the lawyer allegedly used on Facebook. It also told the petitioner, “The entire world may be eligible to become senior (advocate), but at least you are not entitled.” The lawyer later apologised and sought permission to withdraw the petition, and the Supreme Court allowed that plea.
Kant said it was “totally baseless” to suggest that he had criticised the nation’s youth. “Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me,” he said, adding that he sees Indian youth as the pillars of a developed India. He also said the court was dealing with a broader concern about fake credentials, telling the bench that there were already “parasites of society who attack the system.”
The remarks quickly drew attention because Kant had used the phrase “youngsters like cockroaches” while speaking from the bench, saying some people “don’t get any employment or have any place in profession” and then turn into media figures, social media voices, RTI activists and other activists who attack everyone. But on Saturday he drew a line between that criticism and India’s younger generation, insisting his remarks were aimed at fraud and opportunism, not age.
The dispute sits inside a larger concern the Supreme Court raised during the proceedings: the authenticity of degrees held by several lawyers. The court said it was considering asking the Central Bureau of Investigation to verify the degrees of many lawyers wearing black coats because of serious doubts about whether the credentials were genuine. It also said the Bar Council of India would not act on the issue because it needs votes. That background made the exchange about the Senior Advocate designation more than a personal reprimand; it became part of a wider judicial warning about forged qualifications and the integrity of the profession.
For now, the immediate fight over the petitioner’s plea is over. The petitioner withdrew, the court let the matter go, and Kant’s clarification closed the public loop on the cockroach remark by saying the target was not the youth of India but those he described as entering respected professions through deception.
