A defining feature of the recent Cockroach Janta Party agitation related to its underestimation by the government, which hoped to quell the protests by force. There is also merit in pleas that the same police force accused of using excess force also investigating it could potentially undermine credibility. However, the Chief Justice of India’s remark that protests are permissible “with due permission and at designated places” could come at odds with the right to protest. The democratic purpose of a protest is to inconvenience the state and thus should not be limited to its happening at the state’s convenience. If the CJI’s insistence on ‘discipline’ comes to mean protests must be orderly and predictable, it risks imposing administrative preferences on a constitutional right.