A protest is a strange, difficult thing to be inside. It looks, from the outside, like a single body moving with a single will, but anyone who has actually stood in one knows it is nothing of the sort. It is a loose weave of grandmothers who came because a grandchild was picked up, students who saved a week of bus fare to be there, farmers who slept in trucks to be there, office workers who slipped out at lunch, drifters who came for the free water, agitators who came for the fight, and thousands of ordinary people who simply felt they could not stay silent any longer. It is tired feet and dry throats and long stretches of nothing happening. It is chants that rise and fall for no clear reason. It is bad information travelling faster than good information. It is fear and hope tangled together in the same body. What a protest is not, almost ever, is a coordinated attack on the state. And yet the standard institutional response of the Indian state, across governments and across decades, has been to treat it as exactly that.

Also, a celebration is in order. A celebration of the grit and courage the youth of this country has shown in the face of government apathy and violence by the police, all of it leading to resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, a powerful union minister in the NDA III government.

While the main anchor entity of the movement Cockroach Janata Party has declared that government will withdraw FIRs against the protestors, a question on the responsibility for the violence against the protestors remains i.e., why were the peaceful protestors dealt with such violence to the extent of pellet guns, by the Delhi Police—a police department that works under the control of the Central Government (Home Ministry). That again begs a more structural question. How did India end up with a civilian police that is capable of unleashing such violence on peaceful protestors and since such violence is not new, how should the system be reformed?

This is the starting point from which any serious reform conversation has to begin, because the failure of Indian crowd control is not primarily a failure of individual officers behaving badly. It is a failure of an institution that has never fully accepted that a citizen with a grievance is not the same thing as an enemy of the state.

Where does the problem lie?

The Police Act of 1861 was written in the wake of 1857 with the explicit purpose of controlling a hostile native population, and its basic architecture, a paramilitary force accountable upward to the political executive rather than outward to the public, granted enormous statutory discretion and almost no statutory duty, remains largely intact. The Supreme Court’s Prakash Singh judgment of 2006 tried to open a window wherein it fixed tenures for senior officers, separation of investigation from law and order, independent complaints authorities. Every state has technically complied and almost every state has hollowed out that compliance in practice. Complaints authorities exist on paper with no staff, no budget, and no independence; officers are transferred within months of politically inconvenient decisions; the political control that Prakash Singh tried to loosen has, in many states, actually tightened. Reform in India has developed a peculiar shape wherein the letter of change manifests without the substance of it.

But locating the entire problem in colonial history is too easy, because it lets the last seventy-eight years off the hook. Post-independence India has added its own pathologies to the colonial skeleton. The most important of these is that the police have become a resource that ruling parties at the state level deploy against political opposition, and the crowd-handling function has become the sharpest edge of that deployment. A sub-inspector on the ground has almost unlimited discretion to declare an assembly unlawful under what is now Section 148 of the BNSS, to order a baton charge, to fire tear gas. There are no binding directions, no codified escalation ladder, and no procedural check that must be cleared before force is used. The following is what Section 148 (1) of the BNSS states:

Any Executive Magistrate or officer in charge of a police station or, in the absence of such officer in charge, any police officer, not below the rank of a sub-inspector, may command any unlawful assembly, or any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of the public peace, to disperse; and it shall thereupon be the duty of the members of such assembly to disperse accordingly.

In this very consciously worded provision of the ironically named Bharatiya Nagari Suraksha Sanhita, the brakes on arbitrary decision making are what the law starts with when it says “Any Executive Magistrate” a rank that can be seen as higher than a sub-inspector and its equal rank “an officer in-charge of a police station.” These brakes are immediately loosened as soon as the provision says “in the absence of such officer in-charge, any officer not below the rank of sub-inspector” which is essentially ‘any sub-inspector may command an unlawful assembly to disperse’. Section 148(2) states that if the unlawful assembly does not break or disperse, force may be used.

This vacuum of doctrine is filled, on the ground, by the officer’s own instincts, which are shaped by his training, and his training has taught him that a crowd is a mob and a mob is dispersed. The verbs matter. Everything downstream of that verb, the choice of equipment, the posture of the constable, the tone of the first announcement over the loudhailer, flows from an idea that treats the citizen as the problem.

Reform, then, has to begin with rewriting the verb, and only afterward can it move to the machinery. A new statutory framework, whether through fresh state Police Acts or a national code drafted with genuine input from civil liberties lawyers, protest organisers, retired officers, and public health experts, would need to establish something Indian policing has never really had i.e., an affirmative duty on the police to facilitate the exercise of Article 19 rights, with the burden of proving imminent danger sitting on the state rather than on the citizen. This is a bigger conceptual shift than I am making it out to be. It converts a protest from a privilege the police grant to a right the police protect, and it changes what a good day at work looks like for the officer on the ground. Under the current architecture, a successfully dispersed protest is a professional success. However, if facilitation becomes the way, a protest that ended peacefully with people going home hoarse and tired is the professional success, and the constable who talked a knot of angry young men out of throwing stones is the officer who is promoted.

It is here that international experience begins to matter, but it matters with far more nuance than mere adoption of any other country’s practices.

Is there a better way to handle crowds?

Swedish dialogue policing, developed after the Gothenburg riots of 2001, is genuinely interesting. A uniformed dialogue officers whose only job is to talk, weeks of pre-protest negotiation with organisers, jointly walked routes, agreed visible signals for escalation. But Sweden is a country of ten million people with a small, homogeneous police service, protests that usually have identifiable organisers, and a political culture that treats the state as broadly trustworthy. Almost none of that describes India. An Indian protest often has no single leadership to negotiate with. And that itself has many legitimate reasons. Shaheen Bagh’s power came precisely from being leaderless, and the farmers’ protest at Delhi’s borders had a rotating cast of union heads who did not always agree. A dialogue officer culture cannot be imported wholesale into a force where the sub-inspector’s authority over the constable rests substantially on his willingness to be feared, or into a political environment where the ruling party may actively want the protest broken. What can be borrowed is the underlying idea that communication is a professional skill and that the officer who de-escalates is doing the harder, more valuable job. The Indian adaptation would have to invent new institutional forms. Perhaps designated Protest Liaison Cells at the district level, staffed by officers who volunteer for this work and are trained in the sociology of Indian protests specifically, the role of caste and community in shaping crowd dynamics, the way rumours travel through WhatsApp during a sit-in, the different psychology of a farmer’s rally and a student’s march.

How do we ensure Accountability and Transparency?

Training has to move in parallel with theories and ideas, because an institution behaves the way it has been trained to behave. The average Indian constable receives around nine months of basic training, of which crowd control occupies perhaps a handful of days delivered largely as physical drill: forming a cordon, swinging a lathi, executing a charge. What is ironic is that the Delhi Police had sent its force to train on crowd control to the Rapid Action Force’s academy in Meerut.  Therefore, a serious redesign would build in weeks rather than days on crowd psychology, non-violent communication, and scenario simulation, and it would bring in outside trainers whom the police service currently views with suspicion i.e., lawyers, doctors, protest organisers themselves, journalists who have been on the receiving end of a lathi charge. This means that not only is there a need to impart more democratic training to the police officers, there is also a need to first have them unlearn the anti-democratic training they undergo within the current system. Empathy is a trainable skill, and India has trained it out of the force with unusual efficiency.

Equipment is the piece where brakes are needed the most, and it is where the current system does its most visible damage. The tear gas shells commonly used in Indian crowd control operations are frequently past expiry, often fired directly at protesters rather than in high arcs, and their canisters have killed by head impact alone. The pattern is documented from Tuticorin in 2018 through Delhi in 2020 and beyond. Pellet guns, deployed extensively in Kashmir, have blinded thousands, including children, and belong to a category of weapon that no civilian police service anywhere in the democratic world uses at that scale. Reform here is partly a matter of procurement rules, independent medical review of every less-lethal munition, withdrawal of anything with a documented pattern of causing serious injury, and partly a matter of what the equipment signals. When a police unit arrives at a peaceful sit-in in full riot gear with automatic weapons visible, it has communicated something before a word is spoken, and the communication is that this is not a conversation.

Body cameras are worth thinking about carefully, because they have become the fashionable answer everywhere and their record is genuinely mixed. American police departments adopted them at scale after Ferguson in 2014, and the studies since have shown that they reduce complaints and reduce force only when the surrounding accountability system actually processes the footage. Otherwise, they simply become one more piece of evidence that the police control. An Indian body camera regime would work only if the footage was held by an authority outside the police, if turning the camera off during an incident created a legal presumption against the officer, and if selective deletion carried personal consequences. Without those scaffolds, a body camera is theatre.

Section 197 of the CrPC, now carried into the BNSS, requires government sanction to prosecute a public servant for acts committed in the course of duty, and that sanction is almost never granted for crowd-control violence. The Hashimpura convictions came thirty-one years after the killings, and only because the High Court refused to let the case die. The blinding, firings, and custodial deaths that fill the decades between then and now have produced almost no criminal consequences for the officers involved. Reform requires narrowing the sanction requirement sharply for offences involving death, grievous hurt, or sexual violence during crowd operations; creating a statutory presumption of state liability with immediate compensation from a dedicated fund; and, most importantly, building Police Complaints Authorities with the staff, the budget, and the independence to actually investigate. None of this needs a foreign model to justify it. It is a purely Indian problem with a purely Indian solution i.e., the state must be willing to let its own officers be held to account, and until it is, every other reform is decoration. And the deployment of paramilitary forces like the CRPF for what is essentially civil policing has to be scaled back, because their training is for insurgency, not for citizens.

Be that as it may, some protests turn violent and they will need force to restore peace. When such protests do happen, it is natural for the police to need split-second decision-making powers. It is here that a transparent system should be put in place that protects both the citizens against undue force and also ensures that the police are able to restore peace. What could those systems be?

A detailed, publicly accessible post incident report, with statements taken from the personnel as soon as their shift ends, by an independent protest cell would be desirable. This cell could consist of independently appointed panel of citizens, by the people’s representatives at the local level i.e., the Sarpanches, Corporators, Mandal Parishad and Zilla Parishad Members via detailed reasoning for each selection.

For added protection, each cell should be mandatorily adopt a consensus approach while making decisions. This could ensure that accountability is introduced. It is here again that Bodycams could be of assistance to show whether disproportionate force is being used or not. The police should be able to show to the protest cell all their attempts to assuage the crowd or calm it before they resorted to force. Individual complaints against any officer using disproportionate force need to be taken. For example, there have been many instances in the recent Delhi protests against NEET, where videos were shot when the police used batons to thrash protesters as they were walking without any disturbance. Such excessive and unnecessary use of force needs to be held accountable for any meaningful reform.

Conclusion

Reform of this depth is slow, and its friends inside the system are few. But the alternative is what India has now i.e., a police service whose default response to democratic expression is force, and a citizenry that has learned to expect the lathi as the state’s first sentence in any conversation about grievance. That expectation, more than any single incident, is what corrodes the trust on which a democracy runs. A protest, at its heart, is a citizen still willing to talk to the state. The reform of Indian policing, in the end, is the question of whether the state is willing to talk back.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

Related:

Permission to Protest? Why the right to dissent needs no licence

Defectors & Democracy: A critique of the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution

July 2026: A dissent that was brutally put down, a crackdown after the protest ended

The post Reforming policing beyond force appeared first on SabrangIndia.

That contradiction lies at the heart of what comes next. The resignation may have answered one political demand, but it does not answer what happened to the protesters who were arrested. It does not account for the FIRs filed against them. It does not explain why cases were registered despite the Centre’s assurance that there would be none. And it does not settle the allegations of excessive police force, including the reported use of pellet guns, or the injuries sustained during the crackdown. Nor does it address what happened after the crowds dispersed.

The protests of India’s youth, especially in Delhi, the capital and Bihar were especially brutal. The use of pellet guns, steel lathis and visuals and videos of brazen sexual assault by policing personnel against female protesters are now a household story and have generated outrage and demands for accountability and action.

Though the protests have ended, for now, police cases have not been withdrawn. Notices were issued. Families were drawn into the process. Protesters were detained and, in some cases, sent to judicial custody. Facial-recognition technology was deployed around protest sites. Muslim protesters and volunteers reported police action that, in some instances, allegedly extended to their families. Across different states, the response to dissent increasingly moved beyond the street and into the criminal justice system, the home and the private lives of those who had participated.

This is why the aftermath cannot be reduced to the resignation of a minister or the withdrawal of a protest. The more difficult questions remain. What happens to the FIRs filed against protesters after the Centre’s assurance that there would be none? Why are police reportedly waiting for government approval to withdraw cases that should, according to that assurance, never have been registered? Who will account for the arrests and detentions that have already taken place? Who will investigate allegations of police brutality and excessive force? And what happens to those who were injured, who were under surveillance or drawn into cases simply for being part of a movement that challenged the government? The political confrontation may have ended. The State’s actions during and after it still demand answers.

The Centre’s assurance and the FIRs that followed

Among the final demands put forward by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) before it called off the agitation was the withdrawal of all FIRs and cases registered against protesters during the movement. The demand was significant because it recognised that, beyond the immediate political questions of examination reforms and ministerial accountability, hundreds of students and young protesters had already been drawn into the criminal justice system. Following assurances from the Centre that protest-related cases would not continue and that FIRs against protesters would be withdrawn, the CJP announced the suspension of its agitation.

To date however, there is no confirmation that these assurances have resulted in real action.

Yet the events on the ground tell a more complicated story. Reports from across the country show that FIRs had already been registered, protesters had been arrested, and many had been remanded to judicial custody before the political settlement was reached. According to reporting cited by Maktoob Media, more than 400 protesters were arrested and sent to jail, while police released photographs and posters of identified protesters in several districts. The report noted that these arrests came despite the Union government’s assurance that no cases related to the protests would be registered in NDA-ruled states. In Patna, at least 87 people were reportedly remanded in an FIR connected to the Bihar Bandh, while Prabhat Khabar, as cited in the same compilation, reported that 190 people had been arrested and sent to jail. In Chhapra, four FIRs were reportedly registered and 56 people arrested, while 25 people were arrested in Siwan.

The Centre’s assurance and the events on the ground therefore sit uneasily alongside each other. If peaceful participation in the protests was never meant to attract criminal proceedings, why were FIRs registered against protesters at all? And if, as reported by The Times of India, the Delhi Police are now awaiting government approval to withdraw these cases, it raises another question: why should people who were peacefully exercising their constitutional rights have had to pass through the criminal justice system in the first place?

As per Indian Express, Mumbai Police registered 15 FIRs against nearly 1,500 people in connection with demonstrations supporting the agitation. Police data accessed by the newspaper showed that among 301 people named in seven FIRs, more than half were aged 25 or younger, with one in five between 18 and 20. Around one-third of those named were women. The offences included unlawful assembly and disobedience of lawful orders. The Indian Express also reported the case of a 20-year-old student who said he had been recording a protest from a sweet shop after attending his coaching class. He was taken to a police station and later struggled to determine whether an FIR had actually been registered against him. The uncertainty surrounding his legal status became a form of pressure in itself.

This does not diminish the importance of withdrawing the FIRs. On the contrary, their withdrawal is necessary where protesters have been booked solely for participating in peaceful demonstrations. But the withdrawal of cases cannot be the end of the conversation. It must also be accompanied by an examination of how and why peaceful protesters were criminalised despite the Centre’s assurance and despite the constitutional guarantee of the right to assemble and protest peacefully.

This distinction is important. Where individuals committed acts of violence, attacked police personnel or damaged public property, those allegations must be investigated on their own merits. But participation in a peaceful protest is not, by itself, a crime. The criminal law must distinguish between acts of violence and the exercise of democratic rights. That distinction is essential if the constitutional right to protest is to have any real meaning. This is the point at which the FIR becomes more than a legal instrument. It becomes a mechanism through which the State can impose a cost on dissent even without securing a conviction. The consequences begin before the court has spoken.

From tear gas and barricades to alleged pellet injuries in Delhi

The use of force in Delhi adds another dimension to the story. The march towards Parliament on July 20 became a defining moment in the State’s response to the movement, with police action involving barricading and crowd-control measures, including tear gas, followed by allegations that pellet guns were used.

The Hindu reported that at least four of approximately 80 protesters injured during the police action sustained pellet-gun injuries, according to a source at Lady Hardinge Medical College. Delhi Police denied using pellet guns and called the claims false and misleading, while allegations focused on the Rapid Action Force. The RAF, reported The Print, has accepted using excessive force.

The Hindu’s analysis notes that the Ministry of Home Affairs has maintained that pellet guns should be used only as a last resort after other crowd-control measures, including warnings, tear-smoke and PAVA shells, have failed to disperse a violent crowd. The July 20 incident therefore raises the question of whether the safeguards governing their use were followed. That question becomes particularly important when the protesters are students and when there is no established finding that the crowd posed a threat requiring such a weapon.

The debate over pellet guns is not new. The Hindu’s reporting recalls how the government explored alternatives following the injuries caused during the unrest in Kashmir, including PAVA shells, stun-lac rounds, acoustic devices and plastic bullets. Yet pellet guns remained part of the security forces’ arsenal. The weapon’s continued use has been criticised because of its capacity to cause permanent eye injuries and other serious harm.

The United Nations Human Rights Office’s 2020 guidance on less-lethal weapons went further, stating that metal pellets fired from shotguns should never be used because multi-projectile weapons are inherently inaccurate and generally cannot meet the principles of necessity and proportionality.

The Delhi episode therefore requires a transparent investigation into what happened, which forces were deployed, what weapons were used, who authorised their use and whether the response was proportionate to the threat. The same principle that applies to protesters must apply to the State: evidence must determine responsibility.

The State’s response did not stop at the barricades

The crackdown also moved into the realm of surveillance. The Daily Pioneer reported that Delhi Police deployed four facial-recognition units around the Jantar Mantar protest site. Police said the systems were intended to identify wanted criminals, absconders and history-sheeters rather than ordinary protesters, and that the cameras were connected to the Delhi Police database.

The police explanation is relevant, but it does not resolve the broader civil-liberties question. When facial-recognition systems are deployed around a political demonstration, citizens may reasonably wonder whether participation itself is being recorded and monitored. The difference between surveillance intended to identify wanted criminals and surveillance that chills ordinary political participation must be clearly maintained. Without adequate safeguards, a protest site can become a space where citizens exercise their democratic rights while simultaneously being subjected to technologies of identification.

The effect may be subtle, but it can be powerful. A young person who knows that their face may be scanned may think twice before attending a demonstration. A student who has already seen fellow protesters arrested may decide not to return. A citizen who fears being identified may choose silence over participation. The State does not need to prohibit protest outright to weaken the right to protest. It only needs to make participation feel dangerous.

According to The Times of India, Delhi Police have initiated action against social media posts that allegedly contained abusive or derogatory language directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the CJP-led agitation. Several social media platforms have reportedly received notices seeking the removal of such content, with most of the flagged videos, posts and comments already taken down. The report further states that police teams are continuing to monitor online content, issuing fresh notices as new posts emerge and directing platforms to remove them promptly.

The police have maintained that the action is limited to content containing abusive language and is aimed at enforcing the law. At the same time, the move illustrates how the State’s response to the protests has expanded beyond physical demonstrations into the digital spaces where political mobilisation, criticism and debate increasingly take place. While speech that falls foul of the law may legitimately invite legal scrutiny, sustained monitoring of online expression linked to a protest also raises broader questions about the extent to which digital speech surrounding political dissent is being policed in the aftermath of the agitation.

Viewed alongside the registration of FIRs, arrests, surveillance measures and police action during the protests, the scrutiny of online content suggests that the State’s response has not been confined to restoring public order at protest sites. It has continued into the spaces where the protest is remembered, discussed and documented.

The Muslim protester and the question of unequal policing

The allegations involving Muslim protesters and volunteers add another layer of concern to the story. It is important to be precise here: the available reporting does not establish a universal policy of targeting Muslims, and individual allegations must be independently verified. But the number and nature of the reported incidents are serious enough to raise questions about whether Muslim citizens have been disproportionately exposed to police scrutiny and coercion.

One of the most striking cases concerns Muhammad Junaid, a volunteer who was reportedly involved in distributing food and water to protesters. According to reporting cited from Scroll, Junaid alleged that police action extended to his family while authorities were looking for him. His relatives were reportedly detained or questioned, and documents were allegedly seized, while police denied taking action against his family. The allegation is significant not simply because it concerns one individual. It raises the possibility that the pressure of policing can extend beyond the person who participated in a protest and reach those around them.

The reported targeting of families is especially troubling because it changes the nature of State pressure. When a person is arrested for an alleged offence, the State is at least claiming to act against that individual. When police action allegedly reaches parents, siblings, spouses or in-laws, the message becomes broader. It suggests that the consequences of dissent may not be confined to the person who chose to protest.

A similar concern emerged in reports concerning five Muslim students returning from Jantar Mantar towards Jamia Millia Islamia. According to The Siasat Daily, the students were taken to a police station and later released after activists and a reporter questioned the police action. The students alleged that they had been picked up without explanation and threatened with a case when they questioned the detention, while the police position was reportedly that the action amounted to verification. Again, these incidents require independent scrutiny rather than sweeping conclusions.

But the pattern is difficult to ignore when placed alongside the case of three young Muslim men in Assam. The Wire reported that Monjur Rahman, Ashraful Islam and Abdul Kashem were arrested after allegedly attempting to organise a peaceful protest in solidarity with the wider movement. Their families said they had sought permission for the demonstration and that the proposed protest had not even taken place. The men were nevertheless booked under serious provisions, including Section 152 of the BNS, while their families disputed the allegations. The central question is not whether every action against a Muslim protester is necessarily communal. The more fundamental question is whether the State is applying the same standards of suspicion, surveillance and force to citizens regardless of their religious identity. That is the test of equal citizenship; and it is a test that must be answered through evidence, transparency and accountability.

Moreover, in Assam, advocate Ariful Islam was remanded to judicial custody until August 7 after being detained by the police for more than 24 hours. According to lawyer and Congress spokesperson Aman Wadud, who represented him in court, Islam was not participating in the protest but was near the site in his advocate’s uniform, carrying his Bar Council identity card and copies of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). As reported by Maktoob Media, Wadud alleged that despite identifying himself as a practising lawyer, Islam was booked under Section 152 of the BNS and remanded to judicial custody. Wadud also pointed to the contradiction between the arrest and the Union government’s assurance that cases against peaceful protesters would be withdrawn, describing the police action as arbitrary and unconstitutional.

West Bengal and the Invocation of the Goonda Act

The legal response to the protests also escalated beyond the filing of FIRs. In West Bengal, the State government invoked the West Bengal Public Safety and Control of Anti-Social Activities Act, 2026, commonly known as the Goonda Act, for the first time since its enactment in connection with violence during the Kolkata protest march.

Announcing the decision in the Assembly, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said around 70 people identified from the protest had “nothing to do with the student movement” and alleged that they had participated solely to create disorder. Seven FIRs were registered in connection with the violence, and police arrested 11 people, including 10 Muslims. The Chief Minister also condemned the reported attacks on journalists during the demonstration, stating that the law had been invoked to ensure “exemplary punishment” for those responsible.

The invocation of the legislation is significant because of the extraordinary powers it confers on the State. The Act allows authorities to order preventive detention for up to one year without trial, issue externment orders requiring individuals to leave specified districts and attach property allegedly connected to unlawful activities. Its constitutional validity is currently under challenge before the Calcutta High Court, with Opposition parties and civil rights groups arguing that its broad preventive detention provisions are susceptible to political misuse and could be used to suppress dissent.

The government has defended its decision by maintaining that the law is being applied not against peaceful protesters but against individuals accused of orchestrating violence and attacking police personnel and journalists. According to the State, shoes, bottles and other objects were thrown at security personnel and members of the media, while the police exercised restraint despite alleged attempts to provoke a stronger response.

Student organisers, however, dispute that account. The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) condemned the attacks on journalists but alleged that “agent provocateurs” linked to the BJP had infiltrated the demonstration to derail the protest and discredit the movement. As reported by Maktoob Media, SFI leaders also accused the Kolkata Police of using tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators and alleged that several student protesters sustained injuries. They further called for an independent investigation, claiming that video footage showed individuals allegedly associated with the BJP participating in the violence.

The competing narratives surrounding the Kolkata violence underscore the importance of an impartial investigation. Those responsible for attacking journalists, police personnel or damaging public property must be identified and prosecuted on the basis of evidence. At the same time, the decision to invoke a preventive detention law with sweeping powers in the context of a political protest inevitably raises wider questions about proportionality, necessity and the extent to which extraordinary legislation should be used in situations involving public demonstrations.

The arrests also drew further scrutiny because 10 of the 11 people arrested were Muslims. Responding to these reports, CJP spokesperson Ratna Singh said the party had received information that protesters had been detained by police in both Assam and West Bengal and that many of those detained were allegedly Muslims. She stated that if those reports were accurate, any targeting of individuals on the basis of religion would be unlawful and deeply concerning. While these allegations remain contested, they add to broader concerns raised elsewhere during the protests regarding whether policing and criminal proceedings were being applied uniformly across communities.

Bihar and the problem of the government’s promise

Bihar presents perhaps the clearest example of why the Centre’s assurance requires greater scrutiny. The State witnessed serious incidents during the Bihar Bandh, including allegations of stone-pelting and damage to public property, and those incidents must be investigated. The legitimacy of a protest does not provide immunity to anyone who commits violence. At the same time, the State’s response must remain proportionate and individualised.

The Hindu reported that police opened fire using AK-47 in Siwan after protesters allegedly continued throwing stones, with at least three protesters injured and police officers also reportedly hurt. The said police officer was later suspended. Scroll separately reported that police opened fire in Jehanabad after protesters allegedly damaged the gate of the district magistrate’s residence and threw stones, while more than 100 people were reportedly arrested. These incidents demonstrate why accountability cannot be one-sided. Those who attacked police officers or damaged property must be investigated, but allegations of excessive police force must also be independently examined. The same principle applies to the FIRs.

The political language around protest is changing

The legal and physical response to dissent has also been accompanied by increasingly charged political language. The Hindu reported that BJP state president Shamik Bhattacharya described protesters involved in a West Bengal rally as “anti-nationals” amid allegations of violence, while an FIR was also registered against actor Sreelekha Mitra over an allegedly objectionable poster depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The reporting also documented competing allegations about violence and attacks on journalists during the protest.

There is no question that violence, vandalism and attacks on journalists must be investigated. Political speech does not provide immunity from criminal law. But the use of labels such as “anti-national” has consequences beyond rhetoric. It can transform the public understanding of dissent from a democratic right into a security threat. Once protesters are framed as threats rather than citizens, stronger State intervention becomes easier to justify. That is why political language matters. The difference between calling someone a protester and calling them an anti-national is not merely semantic. One recognises a citizen exercising a political right. The other places that citizen outside the boundaries of legitimate dissent.

The protest has ended; the questions have not

The resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan may have brought the immediate political confrontation to a close, but it has not resolved the questions raised by the State’s response to the protests. Those questions extend far beyond whether the FIRs against protesters will eventually be withdrawn. They concern the use of force against demonstrators, including allegations of excessive police action and the reported use of pellet guns. They concern the registration of FIRs despite assurances that protest-related cases would not continue, the arrests and judicial custody that followed, and reports that police are now awaiting government approval before withdrawing those cases. They concern the deployment of facial-recognition technology and the monitoring of online speech long after protesters had left the streets. They concern the invocation of extraordinary laws such as West Bengal’s Goonda Act, allegations that Muslim protesters and volunteers were disproportionately targeted, and the political language that increasingly sought to portray demonstrators as “anti-nationals”, “outsiders” or agents of disorder rather than citizens exercising a democratic right.

None of these developments can be viewed in isolation. Taken together, they reveal a broader pattern in which the State’s response to dissent extended well beyond maintaining public order. The protest moved from the streets into police stations, courtrooms, surveillance systems and social media platforms. What began as a movement demanding accountability for failures in the education system became, in many instances, a test of how far the State would go in policing dissent and political opposition.

This does not mean that acts of violence, attacks on journalists or damage to public property should go unpunished. Those responsible must be identified and prosecuted on the basis of evidence. But the same standard of accountability must apply to the State. Allegations of excessive force must be independently investigated. The circumstances surrounding injuries sustained during police action must be examined. The use of facial-recognition technology and expanded digital surveillance at protest sites requires greater transparency. The decision to register FIRs despite public assurances demands an explanation. And allegations of selective targeting, including those involving Muslim protesters and their families, cannot simply be dismissed without an impartial inquiry.

The end of a protest cannot mark the end of accountability. Withdrawing FIRs, if that is ultimately done, would provide relief to many protesters, but it would not answer the larger questions raised by the State’s conduct during and after the movement. A democracy is measured not only by its willingness to hear dissent but also by the limits it places on its own exercise of power. Those limits are precisely what the protests have placed under scrutiny, and they remain unresolved long after the streets have emptied.

Other detailed reports may be read here, here, here and here.

Related:

A deleted tweet, an NSA order, and the shadow of past crackdowns

Youth Uprising: A protest, a brute crackdown, a continuing countrywide response

Mumbai stands with students, but the state pushes back

The exam crisis that became a battle for accountability

Brute Police Action: Mumbai’s crackdown on protestors in solidarity with CJP & Student Groups, AISF, SFI & AISA

The post July 2026: A dissent that was brutally put down, a crackdown after the protest ended appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Colonial hangover and Constitutional Rights

Article 19 (1) (b) of the Constitution guarantees to every citizen the right “to assemble peaceably and without arms.” The clause reads as a right, not as a licence. It was drafted by people, Ambedkar, Patel, Munshi, Ayyar, who had themselves been the objects of a Raj-era regime that criminalised assembly. The very provisions still used to disperse and pre-empt protests today, Section 144 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (now Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita), the police licensing powers under the various state Police Acts are in their bones, colonial. Section 144 traces back to 1861, drafted in the wake of 1857 by a colonial administration whose interest in “public order” was frankly the order of a foreign occupation. These provisions survived the constitutional transition without the searching examination they deserved, and they now sit comfortably under a rights charter they were never meant to serve.

The Constitution does permit “reasonable restrictions” on the right to assemble under Article 19(3), in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order. But a “restriction” is not the same as a “permission requirement”. A restriction operates on conduct: it says you may not throw stones, you may not carry arms, you may not incite violence. A permission requirement operates on the right itself: it says you may not exercise the right at all unless an official first agrees that you may. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said, most memorably in S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram (1989), that any restriction on Article 19 rights must have a “proximate and direct nexus” with the mischief sought to be prevented — it cannot be a “remote, conjectural or far-fetched” apprehension. Permission regimes fail this test by design: they treat every citizen who wishes to assemble as a presumptive threat, requiring them to disprove a danger that has not yet materialised.

The Two Justifications, and Why Both Collapse

The defenders of permission regimes offer, essentially, two justifications. The first is the protection of the rights of others, the commuter’s right to move, the shopkeeper’s right to trade, the resident’s right to quiet. The second is the maintenance of law and order i.e., the fear that assemblies will turn violent, that competing groups will clash, that the police force will be overwhelmed. Both, on inspection, dissolve into arguments not for permission but against protest itself.

Rights vs. Rights

Consider the first. The claim that protests must not disturb the rights of others rests on a strange picture of what protest is for. A protest that inconveniences no one, that is safely tucked into a fenced enclosure at Jantar Mantar or a designated “protest ground” three kilometres from any centre of power, is not a protest in any meaningful sense. It is theatre performed to an empty house. The whole point of assembly, historically and philosophically, is to make a claim visible by making it felt. The villagers whose lands are being acquired for a highway that serves urban commuters cannot articulate their grievance more powerfully than by sitting on that very highway for a day. The disruption is not incidental to their message; it is their message. It says that the road that will be built at the cost of our fields is not, at this moment, more important than our objection. It forces the commuter, who would otherwise pass through obliviously, to briefly inhabit the same inconvenience the villager is being asked to inhabit permanently.

This is what Judith Butler calls the “performative” dimension of assembly: bodies gathered in public space are themselves a form of political speech, prior to and independent of any slogan they might shout. Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition, argued that the political is precisely what appears in public space[1]; to deny appearance is to deny the political. And the Indian tradition, from Gandhi’s satyagraha onwards, has never pretended that legitimate protest is unobtrusive. The Salt March was illegal. The Champaran movement violated orders. If we take seriously the idea that Article 19(1)(b) protects a right of political appearance, then some measure of disruption to others is not a defect of the right. It is constitutive of it. Rights, as Ronald Dworkin put it, are trumps against ordinary utilitarian calculations; the fact that a protest inconveniences many does not, without more, defeat the right of the few to hold it.

None of this collapses into a licence for anything. A protest that blocks an ambulance, that occupies a road indefinitely for months, that targets private homes to intimidate, these can be regulated by ordinary law. What cannot be sustained is the conversion of the possibility of such conduct into a prior permission regime that treats every citizen as a suspect.

Law and order

The second justification is maintenance of law and order. The claim is that assemblies produce violence, and that permission regimes let police pre-position resources, prevent clashes between rival groups, and generally keep the peace. But we need to see what the argument actually asks the police to do. It does not ask them to act against violence when it occurs; it asks them to decide, in advance, which ideas and which groups are dangerous enough to be denied assembly. This is not policing conduct; this is policing politics. The right against prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has recognised in the context of speech at least since Brij Bhushan v. State of Delhi (1950), applies with equal force here. The state may punish what has gone wrong; it may not pre-emptively silence what has not yet happened.

If violence is genuinely apprehended, the police already have every tool they need. They can be present. They can intervene. They can arrest. The Supreme Court in IN Re Ramlila Maidan Incident v. Home Secretary (2012), examining the midnight crackdown on Baba Ramdev’s sleeping supporters, held emphatically that even where a gathering has become legally impermissible, the state’s response must be proportionate and cannot substitute brute force for lawful procedure. The Court’s reasoning cut both ways: as the state cannot use disproportionate force to disperse, it cannot use disproportionate suspicion to pre-empt.

The “Overwhelmed Police” Objection

The most sophisticated version of the law-and-order argument is the resource one i.e., what if bad-faith actors mobilise many small protests at once precisely to stretch the police thin, creating openings for genuine disorder elsewhere? The objection deserves a serious answer, and there are at least four.

First, this is a factual worry that assumes a policing infrastructure of the 1970s. The contemporary Indian state has surveillance capacities, CCTV networks, social media monitoring, drone reconnaissance, cell phone tower triangulation, that make coordinated deceptive mobilisation far harder to pull off than the objection assumes. If anything, the state’s problem today is an excess of pre-emptive information, not a deficit.

Second, this risk already exists under the permission regime. Permissions are routinely violated, spontaneous gatherings routinely occur, and the police already deal with more assemblies than they have formally licensed. The permission requirement does not solve the “stretched thin” problem; it merely gives the state an additional charge to file against organisers after the fact. The regime is redundant to the risk it claims to address.

Third, if a society genuinely has the political conditions for the kind of mass simultaneous mobilisation the objection imagines enough anger, enough distrust of the police, enough coordination against the state, then the answer is not more suppression. Suppression is what produces such conditions in the first place. Every serious student of political violence, from has documented that closed political systems, where legitimate outlets for grievance are shut down, are the ones that eventually explode. The permission regime is a pressure cooker with no whistle. Detangling protest from permission is not a concession to disorder; it is one of the surest ways to prevent the disorder that comes from bottled dissent.

Fourth, and most fundamentally, laws should not be framed around their most extreme abuses. The law of contract is not written for the fraudster, though fraudsters exist; the law of property is not written for the thief. To write the law of assembly around the imagined tactician who orchestrates diversionary protests is to write it for a caricature, and then to impose that caricature’s costs on every ordinary citizen who wishes to hold a candlelight vigil. Law-making is not a war between extremes; it is a negotiation between the ever-armed police and the sometimes-angry protester, and it must give the ordinary citizen the benefit of a presumption of good faith.

What the Indian Courts have actually said

Indian constitutional jurisprudence is more sympathetic to this argument than the daily practice of policing suggests. In Himat Lal K. Shah v. Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad (1973), a Constitution Bench struck down a police rule that required prior permission for public meetings on public streets, holding that while the state may regulate the manner of assembly, it cannot vest an official with uncanalised discretion to refuse it altogether. In Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan v. Union of India (2018), the Court reaffirmed the right to peaceful protest as fundamental and directed the police to formulate guidelines that did not effectively extinguish it. Even Amit Sahni v. Commissioner of Police (2020), the Shaheen Bagh judgment, which held that public roads cannot be occupied “indefinitely”, was careful to note that the right to protest is constitutionally protected and that the state’s response must respect it, the Court’s concern was with duration and specific location, not with the existence of the assembly.

This is not to say that the Supreme Court or Judiciary shares the philosophy of this article in its entirety. In all the three judgements mentioned above, the court’s stance was that the police could regulate protests but not arbitrarily and such regulation included permission regime. It needs emphasis here that discussions on state’s power to curb freedoms and the right of citizens cannot be expected to have outright support from institutions of state like the judiciary.

What is important here therefore is the through-line in these judgments i.e., a recognition that Article 19 (1) (b) is a right, not a licence to be dispensed. Yet the ground-level practice i.e., station house officers refusing permissions on vague “law and order” grounds, proceeds as though the right did not exist. There is a wide gulf between the constitutional as lived at a police thana (local police station), and the gulf is filled by permission.

Detangling: A Constitutional Proposal

Detangling protest from permission does not mean abolishing all regulation. It means inverting the default setting as we see today. The right to assemble should be presumed; the state’s role should be to facilitate it and to intervene against specific unlawful conduct when and only when it occurs. Notification, telling the police in advance that an assembly is planned, so they may be present, is compatible with a rights regime. Permission, the police deciding whether the assembly may occur at all, is not.

This is not a radical proposition. It is what Article 19 (1) (b) already says, if we take its language seriously. The word “peaceably” in the clause is a description of the protected assembly; it is not a condition precedent that some official must certify. A peaceable assembly is protected because it is peaceable; if it ceases to be so, the ordinary criminal law applies. There is no constitutional space, between these two propositions, for a permission regime that treats peaceable citizens as presumptively dangerous.

Ambedkar warned, in his final speech to the Constituent Assembly, against the “grammar of anarchy” i.e., the use of unconstitutional methods when constitutional ones are open. It is worth completing his thought. Constitutional methods only remain open if they remain actually available. A right to protest that can be exercised only with the state’s permission, only in the state’s chosen enclosure, only for the state’s chosen duration, is not a constitutional method. It is a courtesy. Ambedkar’s grammar of anarchy takes hold precisely when the grammar of the Constitution has been quietly replaced by the grammar of the licence. Detangling protest from permission is not a departure from Ambedkar’s warning but actually a condition of its fulfilment.

(The author is part of the legal research team of the organisation)

[1] Hanna Arendt, The Public and Private Realm, The Human Condition, Page 59, University of Chicago Press (1998)

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The order is significant not merely because Parvez and Mehraj have been allowed to remain out on bail, but because it exposes a deeper fault line in India’s anti-terror prosecution regime. Both men have been in custody since March 2023, yet, more than three years later, charges have still not been framed in the case.

The High Court has now held that the trial court’s reasoning for granting bail was legally incomplete because it did not undertake the prima facie assessment mandated by Section 43D(5). The Bench also noted that the prosecution’s chargesheet contains documentary material that the trial court ought to have considered.

“Thus, the trial court’s reasoning is two-pronged i.e.,

• that the evidence is based on oral testimony and
• further that the trial is likely to be delayed further, as charges are yet to be framed in the matter.

However, a perusal of the chargesheet would show that there is in fact documentary evidence which is relied upon by the NIA. Therefore, there ought to have been a discussion in this regard in the impugned orders. The ld. Trial Court is not a Constitutional Court and ought to, in the prima facie opinion of this Court, strictly have gone by the mandate of the statute.” (Para 21)

“Under these circumstances, at the stage of granting bail, this Court would have to consider the mandate of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA and reach a prima facie finding on the allegations raised by the NIA. However, since the impugned orders are orders where bail has been granted by the ld. Trial Court and various conditions have been imposed, this Court is not inclined to stay the operation of the impugned orders.” (Para 22)

At the same time, the High Court declined to put the bail orders on hold and instead imposed a fresh set of restrictions, including twice-weekly reporting to the NIA, a prohibition on participation in programmes and meetings concerning issues similar to those involved in the case, restrictions on communication with persons named in the chargesheet, and a bar on association with organisations linked to the subject matter of the prosecution.

The result is a striking judicial compromise: the High Court has criticised the legal reasoning behind the grant of bail, but has nevertheless refused to undo the liberty that the bail order has restored.

That distinction matters because the central question raised by the case is not simply whether Parvez and Mehraj should remain on bail. It is whether the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining bail under the UAPA, combined with the slow pace of trials, can effectively turn pre-trial detention into punishment before conviction.

The arrest-to-trial gap is the real story

The case against Parvez and Mehraj stems from FIR No. RC-37/2020/NIA/DLI, registered by the National Investigation Agency on October 8, 2020. The two were subsequently chargesheeted as Accused Nos. 1 and 2 in September 2023, with the prosecution invoking provisions of the IPC as well as several provisions of the UAPA, including Sections 17, 18, 22A, 22C, 38, 39 and 40.

What makes the timeline particularly striking is that the High Court’s order records that Parvez has been in custody since March 22, 2023, while Mehraj has been in custody since March 20, 2023, and yet, when the trial court granted them bail in July 2026, charges had still not been framed.

The trial court itself had recognised the likely delay in the proceedings. In Parvez’s case, it noted that the allegations were primarily based on oral testimony whose veracity would have to be tested during trial, a process that was likely to take considerable time. In Mehraj’s case, the trial court similarly observed that the prosecution’s allegations were substantially based on oral testimony and that the trial was unlikely to conclude in the near future. It also recorded that Mehraj had joined the investigation whenever he had been called before his arrest.

This is where the case moves beyond the narrow question of bail. A criminal prosecution is supposed to culminate in a trial, and a trial is supposed to test the evidence relied upon by the prosecution. A conviction, if warranted, is then supposed to follow only after guilt has been established in accordance with law.

When a person is detained for years under a statute that makes bail exceptionally difficult, while the trial remains stuck before the framing of charges, the constitutional promise of personal liberty begins to look increasingly fragile. The State may insist that the accused are dangerous, and the prosecution may invoke national security, but neither the seriousness of the allegations nor the invocation of national security changes the fundamental legal position that the accused have not been convicted.

The danger is that when the process itself takes years, imprisonment before trial can begin to resemble the punishment that the law reserves for a person only after conviction. That is not an argument against prosecuting serious offences. It is an argument for ensuring that serious prosecutions are brought to trial with seriousness and speed.

The NIA’s Case: Terror financing, secession and alleged militant links

According to the NIA’s chargesheet, Parvez was associated with the Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and allegedly used his position to facilitate activities that the agency characterises as secessionist and linked to banned terrorist organisations. The NIA alleges that Parvez was involved in raising and routing funds and in providing financial support to families of Hizbul Mujahideen cadres. The agency has also alleged links with Hizbul Mujahideen commanders, the Jammu & Kashmir Affectees Relief Trust and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

The prosecution further alleges that Parvez facilitated the recruitment of local youth into terrorist ranks and maintained contacts with various organisations and individuals associated with the Kashmir separatist movement.

The allegations against Mehraj are similar. The NIA alleges that Mehraj worked as a researcher and volunteer with JKCCS, was closely associated with Parvez, and formed part of what the prosecution describes as a wider conspiracy promoting a secessionist agenda.

The agency further alleges that Mehraj maintained contact with persons linked to Hizbul Mujahideen, assisted in receiving funds and played a role in their alleged distribution. These allegations constitute the prosecution’s case and remain to be established through the judicial process. They are not findings of guilt, and the accused remain entitled to the presumption of innocence until their guilt is proved in accordance with law.

The UAPA’s Paradox: The harder the bail, the longer the incarceration

The case also highlights the particular difficulty created by Section 43D(5) of the UAPA. Under the provision, a court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against the accused is prima facie not true before bail can ordinarily be granted. This creates an exceptionally high threshold for an accused seeking release.

The accused is not merely required to satisfy the conventional considerations governing bail. The court must also engage with the prosecution’s case at a preliminary stage and determine whether the allegations appear prima facie true. The consequence can be severe because, when bail is denied, the accused remains incarcerated, and when the trial moves slowly, that incarceration can continue for years.

If charges are not framed, the evidence is not fully tested, and if witnesses have not been cross-examined, their credibility remains unresolved. Yet, during that entire period, the accused can continue to remain behind bars. This is the paradox at the heart of the UAPA bail regime.

The stringent statutory threshold is intended to protect the State against serious threats, but when it operates alongside prolonged investigations, voluminous chargesheets and slow-moving trials, it creates the possibility that the denial of bail itself becomes the most consequential punishment imposed on an accused person long before a court determines whether that person is actually guilty.

The case of Parvez and Mehraj brings that concern into sharp relief because both men have spent more than three years in custody while the trial has yet to reach the stage of framing charges.

The High Court order

The High Court’s criticism of the trial court: The NIA challenged the bail orders on the ground that the trial court had failed to comply with the mandatory requirement of Section 43D(5). Senior Advocate Madhav Khurana, appearing for the agency, argued that the trial court had essentially granted bail because the trial was at an early stage and because the prosecution’s case was based largely on oral evidence.

The NIA argued that this approach ignored the statutory test and failed to account for the seriousness of the allegations. The agency also contended that the release of the accused could have consequences for national security. The defence opposed the NIA’s attempt to stay the bail orders.

It argued that the trial court had considered the allegations and had imposed stringent safeguards before granting bail. The defence also contended that a bail order should not ordinarily be interfered with except in exceptional circumstances. The defence further relied upon an earlier Delhi High Court order granting bail to Parvez in another UAPA case, arguing that there was an overlap between the allegations in the two matters and that the NIA had not challenged that earlier order.

The High Court ultimately found that the trial court’s approach did not go far enough. The Bench held that the trial court had failed to arrive at the conclusion required under the proviso to Section 43D(5) regarding the prima facie position of the accusations against the accused. The High Court also identified what it regarded as a significant omission in the trial court’s reasoning.

While the trial court had proceeded on the basis that the allegations were primarily founded on oral testimony, the High Court, after examining the chargesheet, found that the NIA had also relied upon documentary evidence. The Bench held that this documentary material ought to have been discussed in the bail orders.

The Court further observed that a trial court dealing with bail under the UAPA must strictly follow the statutory mandate and undertake the prima facie assessment required under Section 43D(5).

But the High Court draws the line at sending them back to jail: This is perhaps the most important part of the judgment. Despite finding a serious deficiency in the trial court’s application of Section 43D(5), the High Court refused to stay the bail orders.

The Bench noted that the trial court had already granted bail subject to several conditions and declined to suspend the operation of those orders. The High Court also made it clear that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the allegations at this stage. Instead of ordering the accused back into custody, the Court imposed additional restrictions.

The accused must now report to the NIA’s Chief Investigating Officer twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday, at the agency’s headquarters in Lodhi Road. They have been restrained from participating in activities similar to those forming the basis of the prosecution case and from associating with groups or organisations linked to the subject matter of the FIR, including JKCCS.

They have also been barred from participating in or attending programmes, rallies, gatherings or meetings concerning issues similar to those involved in the case, whether physically or virtually, until the conclusion of the trial. The restrictions further prohibit the circulation of posts, literature, handbills, posters and banners in any form.

The accused have also been prohibited from communicating with co-accused and persons named in the case materials or allegedly involved in similar activities. They may communicate with close relatives and family members, but cannot meet or communicate with persons or organisations named in the chargesheet. These conditions operate in addition to those already imposed by the trial court.

Parvez was represented by senior advocate Tanvir Ahmed Mir, along with Advocates Swati and Kartik Venu while advocate Jawahar Raja represented Mehraj.

A bail order that comes with an extraordinary degree of restraint

The irony of the order is difficult to overlook. The High Court has restored liberty to the accused, but that liberty comes with an extraordinary degree of surveillance and restriction. Parvez and Mehraj are free from custody, but they must report twice every week to the investigating agency. They are permitted to interact with their families, but their communications with persons named in the chargesheet are restricted. They cannot participate in public programmes, rallies or meetings concerning issues similar to those involved in the case. They cannot circulate literature, posters, banners or other material. They cannot associate with organisations linked to the subject matter of the prosecution.

Such conditions raise a broader question about the meaning of liberty after bail has been granted. If the criminal justice system presumes a person innocent until conviction, the extent to which restrictions can be imposed on a person released on bail before they begin to resemble a form of preventive restraint deserves careful judicial scrutiny. That question becomes particularly important when the trial itself has not yet begun in earnest. The High Court’s order does not answer that question, but it brings the issue sharply into focus.

There is a tendency in national security cases to treat the invocation of the UAPA as though it ends the conversation about individual liberty. It should not. The seriousness of an allegation does not eliminate the requirement of a fair and timely trial. The invocation of terrorism-related offences does not suspend the presumption of innocence.

National security is undoubtedly a compelling state interest, but it cannot become a blanket answer to every question concerning prolonged pre-trial incarceration. The State has every right, and indeed a duty, to investigate credible allegations of terror financing and links with banned organisations. At the same time, the State also has a duty to prosecute those cases efficiently and to ensure that criminal proceedings do not remain in limbo for years.

If the prosecution believes, it possesses a compelling documentary record, financial trail, communications evidence and witness testimony, that material must ultimately be brought before the trial court and tested through the judicial process. The criminal justice system cannot indefinitely rely on the gravity of allegations as a substitute for adjudication. That is the central tension in the Parvez-Mehraj case.

The NIA maintains that the allegations are grave enough to justify continued incarceration. The defence maintains that the accused have already spent years in custody without trial and that the prosecution’s evidence must be tested in court. The High Court has, for now, chosen a middle path by acknowledging the deficiencies in the trial court’s bail reasoning while refusing to reverse the grant of bail.

Trial to continue, while the bail battle remains alive

The High Court has directed the respondents to file their replies to the NIA’s appeals, with rejoinders to follow. The proceedings before the trial court have also been directed to continue. The Bench has specifically clarified that the July 18 bail orders shall not be treated as precedent in any other case because those orders remain under challenge before the High Court. The matter is next listed for August 24, 2026.

For now, Parvez and Mehraj remain on bail, although under a formidable set of restrictions. The larger legal battle, however, is far from over. The case is no longer only about whether two accused persons should remain free pending trial. It has also come to represent a larger question about the operation of India’s stringent anti-terror laws and the constitutional cost of prolonged pre-trial incarceration.

The question is whether a system that makes bail exceptionally difficult can also afford to move slowly when personal liberty is at stake. The answer cannot simply be that the allegations are serious. The answer must ultimately come from a trial.

The complete order may be read below:

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The post Bail Stays, But Under Tight Curbs: Delhi HC’s order in Parvez-Mehraj UAPA case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As per the notification provided, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directed telecom service providers to suspend mobile internet access in areas within a 1.5-kilometre radius of Jantar Mantar on July 23. The order cited “public emergency”, “public safety” and the need to prevent “incitement to the commission of any offence” as grounds for restricting connectivity. The suspension, initially scheduled to remain in force until 4 pm, was later extended till midnight.

However, the disruption was not confined to the protest site. Areas including Mandi House, located nearly two kilometres from Jantar Mantar, also reported connectivity issues despite not being the centre of the demonstrations. According to The Indian Express, the shutdown affected office-goers, residents, businesses and commuters who happened to be in the area.

The consequences were immediate. Digital payments through UPI stopped working for several small businesses, forcing shopkeepers and street vendors to depend on cash transactions. App-based transport services, online communication platforms and navigation services were also affected. A roadside tea vendor told The Indian Express that his business suffered because customers were unable to make digital payments.

The latest shutdown came days after similar restrictions were imposed on July 20, when the student-led “Chalo Sansad” march was organised near Jantar Mantar during the opening of Parliament’s Monsoon Session. The march, called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), sought to highlight concerns over alleged NEET irregularities, examination accountability and student distress. Notably, the July 20 notification for internet shutdown had not been made public on the same day.

Authorities refused permission for the march, imposed prohibitory restrictions under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and deployed heavy security around central Delhi. Routes leading towards Parliament were sealed, while metro stations including Patel Chowk, Rajiv Chowk and Janpath were temporarily closed.

Challenge before Delhi High Court

The legality of the shutdowns has now been challenged before the Delhi High Court. A public interest litigation filed by the Software Freedom Law Centre, India (SFLC.in) has questioned the mobile internet suspension orders issued by the MHA on July 17, 20, 22 and 23 around Jantar Mantar.

As reported by LiveLaw, the petition argues that the orders are unconstitutional, disproportionate and fail to meet the safeguards prescribed under the Telecommunications Act, 2023 and the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024.

The petition contends that the authorities relied on vague references to “public emergency” and “public safety” without disclosing specific material demonstrating an imminent threat that justified cutting internet access. It argues that the government failed to establish why a complete suspension of mobile internet was necessary or whether less restrictive alternatives were considered.

Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020), the plea states that restrictions on internet access must satisfy the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality. The judgment had held that indefinite internet shutdowns were impermissible and that any restriction must be subject to judicial scrutiny and periodic review.

The petition also challenges the lack of public disclosure of the suspension orders, arguing that affected citizens cannot effectively challenge restrictions if the basis for such orders remains inaccessible. It has sought directions requiring authorities to publish shutdown orders before or at the time of enforcement and has demanded production of official records, including file notings, intelligence inputs and Review Committee proceedings.

Under the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024, internet suspension orders can ordinarily be issued only by the Union Home Secretary or State Home Secretary, with limited exceptions allowing an officer of Joint Secretary rank to act in unavoidable circumstances. Such orders are also subject to review mechanisms.

The Delhi shutdowns have once again brought into focus the difficult balance between maintaining public order and protecting constitutional freedoms. While authorities argue that temporary internet restrictions prevent misinformation, mobilisation of violence and security threats, critics maintain that broad shutdowns risk becoming a disproportionate response to peaceful public assembly.

The issue is no longer limited to a single protest site. It raises a fundamental question for a digital democracy: when citizens gather to exercise their rights to peaceful assembly and expression, can the State respond by cutting off a basic channel through which people communicate, organise and access information?

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Detailed may be read here, here, here and here.

Across the country, senior advocates, bar associations and hundreds of lawyers have condemned the alleged police violence against students, describing the crackdown as an assault on the fundamental freedoms of speech, assembly and democratic participation. More than 650 lawyers, along with the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) and Bombay Bar Association (BBA), have demanded accountability and an independent inquiry into allegations of disproportionate force.

The legal fraternity’s intervention is significant because the issue is not merely whether individual protesters were injured—it concerns whether the machinery of the State crossed constitutional limits while responding to a citizens’ movement. Allegations of lathi charges, use of force against women and minors, assault on journalists and lawyers, and the filing of criminal cases against protesters have raised serious questions about whether policing measures were aimed at maintaining public order or suppressing dissent.

The Delhi High Court’s order directing preservation of CCTV footage, videography, PCR records and other material connected with the incident marks an important judicial safeguard. By ensuring that evidence is not lost, altered or rendered unavailable, the Court has kept open the possibility of meaningful scrutiny of the allegations.

The Delhi Police has defended its actions by alleging violence and vandalism by sections of protesters. However, the broader constitutional question remains: when citizens—particularly students—take to the streets to demand accountability from institutions, can the State answer dissent with force?

Proceedings before the Delhi High Court on excessive force by Police

On July 22, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia issued notice on multiple PILs alleging excessive force by the Delhi Police, and directed preservation of all CCTV footage, videography, PCR logs and related records connected with the July 20 incident. The Union Government and Delhi Police have been granted four weeks to respond, reported LiveLaw.

The development is crucial because the allegations before the Court centre on the manner in which State force was deployed against protesters and whether established safeguards governing crowd control were followed. While the Court has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegations or the authenticity of the videos relied upon by the petitioners, the direction to preserve evidence marks an important judicial safeguard. In cases involving alleged police excesses, where the State machinery itself is accused of violating citizens’ rights, the availability of independent and contemporaneous records becomes essential for ensuring accountability.

Petitioners allege force far beyond constitutional limits: Appearing before the Court, Senior Advocate N. Hariharan argued that students assembled at Jantar Mantar were exercising rights protected under Articles 19 and 21 when police allegedly resorted to force that was not regulatory but punitive. He alleged that protesters were beaten with lathis fitted with nails, struck with electric batons, fired upon with pellets, and that more than ninety protesters sustained injuries. Equally significant were the procedural violations alleged before the Court.

According to the petitioners, police neither issued lawful proclamations directing dispersal nor followed the established legal sequence requiring warnings before force is used. Hariharan argued that any force deployed against assemblies must remain proportionate and strictly necessary—not punitive. He also sought an independent investigation, arguing that the Delhi Police could not credibly investigate allegations against its own officers.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan submitted that his legal team had examined approximately 130 videos documenting the crackdown. He alleged that several persons using force lacked identification badges and referred to footage purportedly showing Additional DCP Sandeep Lamba striking a woman protester. Relying upon the Supreme Court’s judgment in Ramlila Maidan Incident v. Home Secretary, he argued that police had ignored settled constitutional safeguards governing dispersal of peaceful assemblies.

Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, argued that the march had been publicly announced well in advance and remained peaceful for nearly twenty days. Referring to Section 149 BNSS, he reminded the Court that the law itself obligates police officers to use “as little force” and inflict “as little injury” as possible while dispersing assemblies.

Police defend crackdown: Representing the Delhi Police and the Union Government, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju defended the police response, arguing that the petitions presented a selective account of the July 20 events and relied heavily on social media videos whose authenticity, according to him, could not be presumed.

The ASG contended that the protests had escalated into violence, with sections of the crowd allegedly engaging in stone-pelting, vandalism and attacks on police personnel. He submitted that police officers had also sustained injuries and that public and private property had been damaged during the march. According to the police, the situation required intervention to restore public order.

Raju further argued that the petitioners had suppressed material facts and relied upon edited or potentially manipulated recordings circulating online. Describing the petitions as “publicity petitions” with alleged ulterior motives, he questioned whether such matters should be entertained under the Court’s public interest jurisdiction.

The ASG also challenged the maintainability of the PILs, arguing that persons claiming to have suffered injuries or assault should approach appropriate criminal remedies, including seeking directions from a Magistrate under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, rather than directly approaching the High Court.

He further relied upon the imposition of prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), arguing that authorities had acted within the legal framework while managing the assembly.

Court refuses to reduce allegations to individual complaints: The Bench, however, appeared reluctant to accept that allegations involving widespread claims of police excess could simply be treated as individual grievances requiring separate FIRs. Responding to the State’s argument, the Court observed: “Is it a case of some isolated incidents? Perhaps not. If it was an unlawful assembly, as you say, there is law on how to deal with it. If these issues are raised in a PIL, how can you say every individual should lodge an FIR?”

The observation was significant because it recognised that allegations involving the conduct of State authorities affecting a large number of citizens may raise broader constitutional questions beyond individual criminal complaints.

The Bench also referred to the Supreme Court’s judgment in Anita Thakur v. State of Jammu & Kashmir, where the Court held that allegations of excessive use of force by authorities resulting in violations of fundamental rights can be examined through public law remedies. The reference reinforced that judicial review of State action is not barred merely because individual criminal remedies may also exist.

It is crucial to highlight here that the matter has been listed for September 11—more than seven weeks after the July 20 crackdown. This issue does not concern a private dispute or a concluded incident; they involve allegations of State violence against citizens exercising their constitutional right to protest, questions of police accountability, and the legality of the force used by law-enforcement agencies. These are issues that go to the heart of constitutional governance and demand urgent judicial scrutiny. Every passing week without substantive consideration delays accountability, prolongs uncertainty for those allegedly injured, and weakens the constitutional promise of timely judicial protection against abuse of State power.

Before the evidence came judicial scrutiny

The judiciary’s initial response to the allegations also became the subject of public debate. Before the Delhi High Court agreed to hear the PILs and ordered preservation of crucial evidence, an earlier request for urgent listing before it had reportedly been met with the oral observation: “Don’t drag Court into all this.”

A day later, Advocate Narendra Mishra orally mentioned before the Supreme Court a letter representation addressed to the Chief Justice concerning the alleged police excesses during the July 20 protests. Responding to the mention, the Court reportedly observed: “Don’t waste our time, don’t waste your time.”

When counsel stated that he possessed videos documenting the police action, the Court is also reported to have remarked: “We are not interested in videos; we don’t have time to watch.”

Subsequently, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, on July 24, clarified in open court that media reports stating he had refused to list a petition were “completely false.” As reported by LiveLaw, the CJI explained that no writ petition had, in fact, been filed before the Supreme Court at that stage. What had been placed before him was only a letter representation sent by a lawyer, which, in the absence of a formally instituted petition, could not be treated as a writ petition. He criticised sections of the media for reporting otherwise and described such reporting as “irresponsible and reckless.”

That clarification is important. It corrects the record on the procedural position before the Supreme Court: the Court was not declining to list a duly instituted writ petition because none had yet been filed. However, the clarification does not entirely answer the broader constitutional concern that followed the oral exchange in open court. It is pertinent to highlight here that the CJI bench did not use its suo-moto powers to take cognizance of the case. The issue is not merely whether a petition had been formally instituted, but the language employed when serious allegations of State violence were first brought to the Court’s attention.

The allegations related to the use of force by State authorities against citizens exercising their fundamental rights, including claims of excessive police violence, injuries to protesters, assault on women and restrictions on the exercise of rights under Article 19. Even where a formal petition is absent, constitutional courts are often the first institutions to which citizens turn when alleging abuse of State power.

A constitutional court’s legitimacy rests not only on its eventual judgments but also on the confidence it inspires that allegations of fundamental rights violations—particularly against the State—will receive careful and impartial consideration. The concern raised by many observers was therefore not procedural alone, but institutional: whether the Court’s initial response reflected the constitutional seriousness of the allegations being placed before it.

That concern becomes even more pronounced when contrasted with the Delhi High Court’s subsequent order directing preservation of CCTV footage, videography and other contemporaneous records. The preservation of evidence does not validate the allegations, but it acknowledges that they are sufficiently serious to warrant judicial examination. If preserving evidence is necessary to determine whether constitutional limits were crossed, then the allegations themselves plainly merit careful scrutiny rather than summary dismissal.

Ultimately, the question extends beyond one oral exchange. It concerns the role of constitutional courts when allegations of excessive State force emerge. In a constitutional democracy, judicial engagement at such moments is not merely procedural—it is integral to maintaining public confidence that the exercise of State power will remain subject to constitutional accountability.

The Court also hears an NIA probe plea

In a parallel development, the Delhi High Court agreed to hear a separate PIL seeking transfer of the investigation into the protests to the National Investigation Agency. Filed by former Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha office-bearer Satish Kumar Aggarwal, the petition alleges that the movement was not genuinely student-led but part of a broader conspiracy involving foreign-funded organisations, opposition political leaders and anti-national elements, reported LiveLaw.

The petition questions the participation of Sonam Wangchuk, refers to his alleged international associations, names several opposition leaders and seeks transfer of all Delhi Police investigations to the NIA. On July 24, the said appeal as dismissed by the bench after holding that “We can’t decide on NIA investigation. It’s the Centre’s job.”

The bar stands with the students

Perhaps the most significant institutional response to the July 20 crackdown has come not from political parties or civil society organisations, but from India’s legal community. In an unusually broad and coordinated intervention, senior advocates, bar associations and hundreds of lawyers across the country have publicly questioned the legality and proportionality of the Delhi Police’s actions, framing the issue as one that strikes at the heart of India’s constitutional commitment to free expression, peaceful assembly and the rule of law.

In a joint public statement signed by more than 650 lawyers, including Senior Advocates Indira Jaising, Raju Ramachandran, Chander Uday Singh, Sanjay Hegde, Huzefa Ahmadi, Rebecca M. John, Nandita Rao, Sanjay Parikh, Anjana Prakash, Jayant Bhushan, Shadan Farasat, Warisha Farasat, Sumita Hazarika, Sanjay Ghose and advocates Prashant Bhushan, Vrinda Grover, along with hundreds of other members of the Bar, the signatories condemned what they described as the use of violence against peaceful student protesters.

The statement characterised the police action as “an attack on the principles of free expression, human dignity and the right to dissent,” arguing that young people demanding accountability over repeated examination failures were met not with dialogue or democratic engagement but with force. Reports by LiveLaw stated that expressing solidarity with those allegedly “harmed, intimidated and traumatised” during the crackdown, the lawyers called for an impartial inquiry and urged constitutional authorities to ensure that those responsible for any excessive use of force are held accountable.

Importantly, the statement situates the issue within a broader constitutional framework rather than treating it as an isolated law-and-order incident. It reminds the State that peaceful protest is a democratic right, not a privilege granted at the discretion of the executive, and argues that Parliament must remain accessible to the voices of citizens, observing that it “is not an ivory tower that should be beyond the reach of its citizens.” The intervention reflects a rare consensus across different ideological and professional strands of the legal community that allegations of police brutality against peaceful demonstrators warrant independent scrutiny rather than dismissal.

The condemnation has not been confined to individual lawyers. Both the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association (SCAORA) have separately issued statements calling for an independent inquiry into allegations of excessive police force during the protests. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal has also publicly criticised the police response and supported the demand for an impartial investigation, adding further weight to calls for accountability from within the legal profession.

Adding to these interventions, Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, who is also the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, addressed a detailed representation to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Union Home Ministry, seeking a time-bound judicial inquiry headed by a sitting or former Supreme Court judge into the police action. Singh alleged that the use of force extended beyond protesters to lawyers, journalists, medical volunteers, women and minors. Referring to reports published by The Wire, Newslaundry, Scroll and independent journalists, he argued that the police action appeared to violate the principles governing crowd control under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and the Delhi Police Manual, including allegations of lathi blows above the waist and officers operating without visible identification badges. He also sought the suspension of the Delhi Police Commissioner pending an independent inquiry, arguing that repeated examination failures had left students with few democratic avenues other than peaceful protest.

The complete SCBA resolution may be read here.

The complete SCAORA resolution may be read here.

Bombay Bar Association: Democratic engagement cannot be replaced by force

The Bombay Bar Association (BBA) has also issued one of the most detailed institutional responses to the events of July 20, placing the controversy squarely within the framework of constitutional rights and democratic governance.

In a statement issued by its President, Senior Advocate Nitin Thakker, the Association described the issues raised by the protesting students concerning repeated examination irregularities and the future of India’s education system as matters of “immense public importance” with far-reaching consequences for the country’s youth.

Referring to videos and media reports of the police action, reported LiveLaw, the BBA observed that if reports depicting lathi charges, tear gas and the use of force against students were accurate, such conduct “cannot be countenanced in a society governed by the rule of law.” It stressed that law-enforcement authorities are expected to act with restraint, proportionality and due regard for the constitutional rights and dignity of every citizen, particularly when dealing with assemblies involving students exercising their democratic rights.

The Association reaffirmed that the right to peaceful assembly and peaceful dissent forms an integral part of the freedoms guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution, observing that peaceful protest is “not merely a constitutional right but an essential feature of democratic governance.” At the same time, it unequivocally condemned any incidents of violence, vandalism or destruction of public or private property by any section of protesters, emphasising that constitutional freedoms must always be exercised peacefully and responsibly.

Notably, the BBA also expressed concern over what it described as intimidatory measures, including the use of force and the registration of criminal cases against protesters, cautioning that such responses risk undermining democratic participation rather than facilitating resolution of public grievances.

Calling for a constructive resolution, the Association urged both the Government and student representatives to move away from confrontation and towards “open, sincere and meaningful dialogue”, arguing that concerns affecting the educational futures of millions of students deserve substantive engagement rather than a purely law-and-order response. In doing so, the BBA reinforced an emerging consensus within the legal community that constitutional democracies are strengthened not by suppressing dissent, but by responding to it through accountability, dialogue and adherence to the rule of law.

The statement may be read below.

Bombay High Court lawyers challenge restrictions on protest, call police action unconstitutional

In a joint statement issued on July 24, 141 advocates practising before the Bombay High Court condemned the police action against protesters at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, and demanding the withdrawal of prohibitory orders restricting public assemblies. The advocates criticised the detention of protesters, including minors, who had gathered in support of the student-led agitation at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, over alleged examination irregularities and demanded greater accountability from authorities.

The lawyers said that the apparent basis for the police action was the absence of permission to hold a protest at Chaityabhoomi. However, they argued that the lack of prior permission cannot become a justification for suppressing the constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

The statement emphasised that the right to assemble peacefully under Article 19(1)(b) of the Constitution is not dependent upon the State’s discretion to permit dissent. “This freedom is rendered meaningless if under the guise of ‘regulation’ and ‘reasonable restrictions’, all protests are prohibited,” the advocates stated, reported Hindustan Times.

The signatories included several prominent senior advocates, including Janak Dwarkadas, Navroz Seervai, Gayatri Singh, Mihir Desai, Haresh Jagtiani, Yug Mohit Chaudhry and Dinyar Madon, who urged the Mumbai Police Commissioner to withdraw prohibitory orders issued under the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951.

The lawyers also questioned the legality and transparency of the orders issued on July 3 and July 20, which imposed restrictions on assemblies, processions and the use of loudspeakers. They argued that orders affecting fundamental rights on such a wide scale require adequate publicity and cannot be invoked retrospectively to justify arrests or force against citizens.

“Prohibitory orders of such scale and import, which on their plain terms require to be given widespread publicity, cannot be passed surreptitiously and thereafter be pressed into service for strong armed action by law enforcement authorities,” the statement said as per the Hindustan Times report.

The advocates further raised concerns over what they described as a pattern of mass detentions and reliance on prohibitory powers without sufficient accountability. They argued that repeated use of restrictive orders creates a situation where citizens are forced to approach already burdened courts simply to challenge restrictions on basic democratic freedoms.

Referring to constitutional jurisprudence on assembly restrictions, the lawyers noted that authorities must demonstrate specific reasons for curtailing fundamental rights and must adopt the least restrictive measures necessary to address any genuine public order concerns. They argued that the police orders appeared to fall short of these requirements, thereby limiting meaningful judicial review.

The intervention adds another layer to the growing legal challenge against the manner in which authorities have responded to student protests. While legal bodies across the country have differed in their assessment of the protests, a significant section of the legal fraternity has focused on a common constitutional concern: that regulation of public assemblies cannot become a mechanism for preventing dissent or converting the requirement of permission into a blanket veto over the right to protest.

Lawyers gather at Supreme Court to read the Preamble in solidarity with students

In a symbolic assertion of constitutional values, a group of advocates assembled on the lawns of the Supreme Court on July 23 to collectively recite the Preamble to the Constitution under the banner “Save Democracy, Save Constitution”, expressing solidarity with students protesting the alleged NEET examination irregularities and condemning the authorities’ response to the demonstrations.

The gathering took place during the Court’s lunch recess and was led by Senior Advocates Indira Jaising and Dr. S. Muralidhar, with Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, also in attendance. Several other senior members of the Bar, including Anand Grover, Anjana Prakash, Sanjay Ghose, Shadan Farasat, Arundhati Katju, Mahalakshmi Pavani, Nandita Rao, P.V. Surendranath, Manali Singhal, Sangeetha Bharti, P.V. Dinesh, Jayant Thakur and Advocate Vrinda Grover, participated alongside a large number of young lawyers. Many carried copies of the Constitution and the Indian tricolour while collectively reciting the Preamble, reaffirming the constitutional commitments to justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, reported LiveLaw.

Addressing the media after the event, Indira Jaising said the gathering was intended to stand “with the students” and to remind the judiciary of its constitutional responsibility to protect fundamental rights.

“We are here to stand with the students. We are here to stand on the side of justice… This concerns the rights of students, and it is the duty of lawyers to stand before the Supreme Court and demand justice for them. The role and function of the Supreme Court of India is to dispense justice.”

Several Supreme Court advocates assemble at the Court lawns to recite the Preamble to the Constitution as part of the ‘Save Democracy, Save Constitution’ campaign amidst the student protests in the national capital.#SupremeCourt pic.twitter.com/CxT7DSOPav

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 23, 2026

Bar Council of India breaks ranks, backs State narrative

In contrast to the widespread concern expressed by senior advocates and bar associations over the alleged use of excessive force against students, the Bar Council of India (BCI) adopted a markedly different position, issuing a public appeal that largely echoed the State’s narrative surrounding the protests.

In a press statement titled “An Appeal to the Intellectuals of the Country”, BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra alleged that the student movement had been “hijacked” by anti-national and anti-social elements and claimed that foreign adversaries were attempting to destabilise India by exploiting students’ grievances. The statement urged lawyers, teachers, intellectuals and parents to intervene to prevent young people from being “misled” into participating in unlawful activities.

The BCI went considerably further than calling for peace or restraint. Without placing any supporting material in the public domain, it alleged that foreign governments, including Pakistan, China and Bangladesh, were orchestrating coordinated social media campaigns to mislead Indian youth. It also claimed that “experts in stone pelting” had been brought from Jammu and Kashmir and other States to attack police personnel, and referred to an unnamed political leader allegedly receiving foreign funds to destabilise the country.

The statement did not cite any official investigation, intelligence findings or judicial determination supporting these serious allegations. Instead, it presented them as part of a broader narrative portraying the protests as a coordinated conspiracy rather than a student movement arising from concerns over repeated examination irregularities.

Notably, the BCI’s intervention made no reference to the widely circulated videos of alleged police violence, the injuries reported by protesters, or the allegations of excessive force now under consideration before the Delhi High Court. Nor did it acknowledge the growing demands from large sections of the legal fraternity for an independent inquiry into police conduct.

This position stands in sharp contrast to statements issued by the Supreme Court Bar Association, the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association, the Bombay Bar Association, and more than 650 lawyers, all of whom have emphasised constitutional protections for peaceful protest while calling for accountability wherever excessive force is established.

The divergence is significant. As the statutory body responsible for regulating the legal profession, the BCI’s intervention carries institutional weight. Rather than focusing on the constitutional questions raised by allegations of police excess or emphasising the rule of law through an impartial inquiry, its statement primarily advances claims of foreign conspiracy and anti-national influence—claims that, at the time of its release, had not been substantiated through any publicly available investigation or judicial finding.

In doing so, the BCI has positioned itself apart from much of the organised legal community, which has framed the events of July 20 primarily as a question of constitutional accountability, police restraint and the protection of democratic dissent, rather than one of national security.

“Anti-social and anti-national elements have entered this so-called student protests,” says Bar Council of India Chairperson & BJP Rajya Sabha MP Manan Kumar Mishra.

“Anti-social and anti-national forces have hijacked their agitation,” he says on #CJPMovement

He says… pic.twitter.com/WsNPwlHZV4

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 23, 2026

From a law-and-order issue to a constitutional reckoning

The developments following the July 20 crackdown have raised questions that extend beyond the immediate events of the protest. The legal proceedings now concern the manner in which State authorities exercise force against citizens and the safeguards that must govern such action.

The central issues before the courts are whether the police response was proportionate, whether established procedures for dispersing assemblies were followed, and whether allegations of excessive force by law-enforcement personnel require independent examination.

The proceedings also raise questions about accountability when allegations are made against State authorities themselves. If citizens allege violations of their fundamental rights during the exercise of democratic freedoms, the availability of an effective and impartial mechanism to examine those claims becomes essential.

The Delhi High Court’s direction to preserve CCTV footage, videography and other records ensures that the facts surrounding the incident can be assessed on the basis of evidence. The response from bar associations and hundreds of lawyers further reflects the broader concern that the handling of protests must remain within constitutional limits. At its core, the controversy is about the balance between maintaining public order and ensuring that the exercise of State power remains subject to constitutional scrutiny.

Related:

Youth Uprising: A protest, a brute crackdown, a continuing countrywide response

Mumbai stands with students, but the state pushes back

The exam crisis that became a battle for accountability

Brute Police Action: Mumbai’s crackdown on protestors in solidarity with CJP & Student Groups, AISF, SFI & AISA

The post Law fraternity rallies behind student protesters, condemns Delhi police crackdown appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Alam Khan outside his home in Barpeta

In an order delivered on January 6, 2026, the Foreigners Tribunal No. 1, Barpeta, presided over by Member Ms. Anurupa Dey, declared that Alam Khan is not a foreigner, concluding that he had successfully established his Indian citizenship through reliable documentary evidence, credible oral testimony and a consistent chain of records demonstrating that his family had been residing in Assam prior to the statutory cut-off date of March 25, 1971.

The decision represents another important legal victory for Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), which provided legal assistance to Alam Khan throughout the proceedings. The matter was argued by Advocate Abhijeet Choudhury, whose legal strategy addressed complex questions of lineage, documentary continuity and evidentiary burden arising under the Foreigners Act, 1946.

Alam Khan along with CJP Team Assam, outside his home

However, the significance of this decision extends beyond one individual’s relief. The Tribunal’s order is noteworthy for its careful appreciation of evidence, its refusal to allow administrative lapses to prejudice the proceedee, and its recognition that family circumstances such as divorce and remarriage cannot, by themselves, undermine a genuine claim to Indian citizenship.

A citizenship dispute dating back more than two decades

Alam Khan’s case originated as IM(D)T Reference Case No. 1371 of 2000, when the Superintendent of Police (Border), Barpeta, referred him as a suspected foreigner. Following the Supreme Court’s order striking down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act in Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India, pending references under the IM(D)T regime stood transferred to Foreigners Tribunals for adjudication under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964. Alam Khan’s case was one such transferred proceeding.

Although the reference itself was over two decades old, Alam Khan received a fresh notice from the Tribunal only in October 2024, compelling him once again to defend his citizenship. For a daily wage labourer with limited financial means, this meant returning to prolonged litigation, collecting decades-old documents, tracing family records and proving facts that ordinarily no citizen is ever expected to establish.

The proceedings eventually culminated in January 2026, though the certified copy of the order reached Alam Khan only several months later. On July 16, 2026, CJP’s legal team, represented by Advocate Abhijeet Choudhury and Assam State In-charge Nanda Ghosh, formally handed over the order copy to him, marking the end of a legal battle spanning almost twenty-six years.

A case made difficult by family history rather than law

Unlike many Foreigners Tribunal proceedings where documentary continuity alone becomes the principal issue, Alam Khan’s case presented an additional layer of complexity arising from his family’s personal history. Alam Khan was born to Late Abdul Hakim Khan and Joytan Nessa. During his childhood, however, his parents divorced. Following the separation, his mother returned to her parental home, while Alam Khan continued residing with his father. Subsequently, his father remarried, and his stepmother, Jahura Khatun, became part of the family. These personal circumstances later translated into significant documentary complications.

By the time Alam Khan’s own name began appearing in electoral rolls, his father had already passed away. Consequently, subsequent voter lists reflected his residence alongside his stepmother rather than his biological mother. Since he did not possess a birth certificate, establishing the identity of his biological mother, and distinguishing her from his stepmother, became one of the most difficult factual questions before the Tribunal.

Ordinarily, such inconsistencies are capable of creating serious doubts in citizenship proceedings, particularly because the burden of proof under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act rests upon the proceedee. Had these inconsistencies remained unexplained, they could easily have undermined Alam Khan’s defence despite his genuine claim to citizenship. It was this challenge that shaped CJP’s legal strategy before the Tribunal.

CJP’s Legal Strategy: Addressing documentary gaps through credible evidence

Recognising that the case hinged not merely on producing documents but on explaining the circumstances behind apparent inconsistencies, CJP adopted a legal strategy that combined documentary evidence with carefully structured oral testimony. Representing Alam Khan, Advocate Abhijeet Choudhury sought to establish an unbroken narrative of lineage, residence and citizenship, while simultaneously demonstrating that the deficiencies in the documentary record arose from circumstances entirely beyond the proceedee’s control. The defence first addressed the most fundamental issue in the case—Alam Khan’s parentage.

To resolve the confusion arising from the divorce of his parents and his subsequent residence with his father and stepmother, CJP produced Joytan Nessa, Alam Khan’s biological mother, as Defence Witness No. 2 (DW-2). Through her sworn affidavit and oral testimony, she confirmed that Alam Khan was indeed her son and explained the family’s history, including her separation from Abdul Hakim and her return to her parental home. The Tribunal found that her evidence fully corroborated Alam Khan’s own testimony and expressly recorded that it found no reason to disbelieve her evidence.

This was a crucial intervention. In Foreigners Tribunal proceedings, discrepancies concerning parentage or family relationships often become decisive, particularly where birth certificates or other foundational documents are unavailable. By placing the biological mother in the witness box and allowing her testimony to withstand cross-examination, the defence transformed what appeared to be a documentary weakness into a coherent and credible explanation supported by oral evidence.

Equally significant was CJP’s response to another obstacle that had nothing to do with Alam Khan himself—the absence of certified electoral rolls for 1985 and 1989. The relevant Election Commission office was unable to produce certified copies of these electoral rolls because they had not been preserved. This was an institutional failure entirely attributable to the authorities. During the proceedings, Advocate Abhijeet Choudhury argued that a citizen cannot be expected to suffer adverse consequences because the State failed to preserve public records that were legally required to be maintained. The inability to produce those electoral rolls, therefore, could not be treated as evidence against the proceedee.

Instead of insisting upon documents that no longer existed, the defence invited the Tribunal to examine the continuity of evidence through earlier and subsequent electoral records, legacy documents and witness testimony. The Tribunal accepted this broader evidentiary approach, demonstrating that the absence of a particular document does not necessarily break the chain of proof where surrounding evidence establishes continuity.

Documentary evidence establishing citizenship

To discharge the burden imposed under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, the defence produced an extensive body of documentary evidence tracing Alam Khan’s family across multiple decades. The foundation of the case lay in the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Tribunal noted that Alam Khan’s grandfather’s name appeared in the 1951 NRC Legacy Data under Legacy Data Code No. 120-0041-8547, establishing that the family was residing in village Katla, Mouza Bhawanipur, long before the citizenship cut-off date prescribed under the Assam Accord. The documentary chain was then strengthened through certified electoral rolls spanning more than five decades.

The 1965 and 1970 voter lists contained the names of Alam Khan’s father, Abdul Hakim Khan, and his mother, Joytan Nessa. The 1970 electoral roll also reflected the presence of his stepmother following his father’s remarriage, a circumstance that aligned with the factual explanation advanced before the Tribunal. Alam Khan’s own name subsequently appeared in the electoral records from 1997 onwards, demonstrating continuity of residence in the same village. Certified copies of the voter list for 1997, 2005, 2010, 2019 and 2021 were produced before the Tribunal.

The defence also produced Alam Khan’s Voter Identity Card, land records (Khatian) and a certificate issued by the Gaonburah of Katla village. Significantly, the Gaonburah himself appeared before the Tribunal and proved the certificate, explaining that it had been issued after verification of the 1965 electoral records relating to Alam Khan’s father. This substantially enhanced the evidentiary value of the certificate, which was no longer merely a supporting document but one whose authenticity stood established through oral testimony.

An equally important aspect of the proceedings was the State’s own conduct. While Alam Khan examined three witnesses, including himself, and produced extensive documentary evidence, the State did not lead any evidence whatsoever to substantiate the allegation that he was a foreigner. The Tribunal specifically recorded that no witness appeared on behalf of the State to adduce evidence.

Tribunal rejects a mechanical approach to citizenship determination

The order is particularly significant because it rejects a narrow or mechanical assessment of documentary evidence in favour of a holistic evaluation of the entire factual record. Foreigners Tribunal proceedings are frequently characterised by intense scrutiny of documentary inconsistencies. Minor discrepancies in names, ages, family relationships or electoral records have often proved fatal to citizenship claims. In Alam Khan’s case, however, the Tribunal recognised that documentary records must be assessed in light of the social realities that produce them.

Rather than treating the absence of a birth certificate or the appearance of a stepmother’s name in later electoral rolls as circumstances adverse to the proceedee, the Tribunal examined whether those circumstances had been satisfactorily explained through credible evidence. Finding that they had, it accepted the explanation offered by the defence.

This approach reflects an important principle in citizenship adjudication: documentary evidence does not exist in isolation. Electoral rolls, family records and legacy documents must be read together with oral testimony and surrounding circumstances. Where the evidence collectively establishes a coherent and credible narrative, isolated inconsistencies cannot automatically justify declaring an individual a foreigner. That reasoning is one of the most significant aspects of the order and reinforces the principle that citizenship determinations must rest on a comprehensive appreciation of evidence rather than on rigid technicalities.

Tribunal finds Alam Khan successfully discharged the burden under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act

One of the most important aspects of the decision lies in the Tribunal’s application of Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, which places the burden of proving Indian citizenship upon the proceedee once a reference is made against them. While the statutory burden remained upon Alam Khan, the Tribunal emphasised that this burden had to be assessed on the basis of the quality, credibility and cumulative effect of the evidence rather than through a piecemeal examination of individual documents.

After considering the oral testimony and documentary record together, the Tribunal held that Alam Khan had successfully discharged this burden. It observed that the evidence placed on record was trustworthy, internally consistent and sufficiently established that he was born to Indian parents who had been residing in Assam prior to March 25, 1971.

This finding is significant because it reiterates an important evidentiary principle governing Foreigners Tribunal proceeding. Although Section 9 reverses the ordinary burden of proof, it does not authorise a mechanical rejection of citizenship claims merely because every conceivable document is unavailable. Instead, what is required is a credible evidentiary chain capable of establishing ancestry and residence. The Tribunal found that Alam Khan had done precisely that.

Oral evidence receives equal evidentiary weight

The order is equally noteworthy for the importance it accords to oral testimony. Citizenship cases before Foreigners Tribunals often become document-centric, with oral evidence receiving comparatively little attention. In Alam Khan’s case, however, the Tribunal carefully evaluated the testimony of both the proceedee and his witnesses instead of confining itself to documentary records alone.

The evidence of Joytan Nessa (DW-2) proved particularly decisive. Her testimony not only established that she was Alam Khan’s biological mother but also explained the family’s circumstances following her divorce from Abdul Hakim. The Tribunal categorically recorded that her affidavit corroborated Alam Khan’s own evidence and that there was no reason to disbelieve her testimony.

Similarly, the Gaonburah of Katla village, who had issued the hereditary certificate relied upon by the defence, appeared before the Tribunal and proved its contents. The Tribunal specifically noted that the certificate had been issued after verification of the 1965 electoral records relating to Alam Khan’s father, thereby enhancing both its authenticity and evidentiary value.

Together, these witnesses bridged the documentary gaps that arose because of divorce, remarriage and the absence of a birth certificate. Rather than treating oral evidence as secondary, the Tribunal relied upon it to contextualise and reinforce the documentary record.

Administrative negligence cannot defeat citizenship

The proceedings also exposed a troubling administrative lapse. During the course of the case, certified copies of the 1985 and 1989 electoral rolls could not be produced because the Election Commission had failed to preserve those records. This was not a case where Alam Khan had failed to produce documents in his possession; rather, the relevant public authority itself was unable to furnish records that ought to have been maintained.

Recognising the implications of this failure, CJP argued that a citizen cannot be deprived of his legal rights because of omissions committed by the State. The absence of public records attributable to administrative negligence cannot be converted into evidence against the very citizen who seeks to rely upon them.

Although the Tribunal’s written opinion ultimately rested on the strength of the remaining documentary and oral evidence, its acceptance of the defence case effectively recognised that missing public records, when unavailable due to official lapses, cannot by themselves negate an otherwise credible claim of citizenship. The decision therefore reflects a fair and pragmatic approach to evidentiary evaluation in citizenship proceedings.

This aspect of the case is likely to assume wider significance. Across Assam, numerous citizenship proceedings have been complicated by missing electoral rolls, damaged records and administrative deficiencies that are entirely beyond the control of the persons facing proceedings. The reasoning adopted in Alam Khan’s case reinforces the principle that such institutional failures should not become instruments for denying citizenship.

A holistic appreciation of evidence

In this order, rather than isolating each document and asking whether it independently established citizenship, the Tribunal examined the evidence as a connected chain extending across several decades. It considered the 1951 NRC legacy data, the certified electoral rolls from 1965, 1970, 1997, 2005, 2010, 2019 and 2021, the voter identity cards, the land records, the Gaonburah’s certificate and the oral testimony of the proceedee and his witnesses. None of these documents, viewed in isolation, answered every question raised in the proceedings. Taken together, however, they established a consistent narrative regarding Alam Khan’s ancestry, family history and continuous residence in Assam.

The Tribunal expressly recorded that the evidence relied upon by Alam Khan appeared trustworthy, that there was nothing on record to disbelieve his version, and that the documents produced were admissible and duly proved. On that basis, it concluded that he had been born and brought up through genuine Indian parents and, being their descendant, could not be termed a foreigner.

“The evidence of Proceedee, coupled with the above-mentioned documents relied upon by him appears to be trustworthy and there is nothing on record to disbelieve him. I find sufficient proof on record to come to a definite conclusion that the Proceedee was born and brought up through genuine Indian Parents and as such, he being the descendent of his Indian Parents cannot be termed as a foreigner as alleged in the above-mentioned case.” (Para 8)

In doing so, the Tribunal reaffirmed an important legal principle: citizenship adjudication is ultimately an exercise in evaluating the totality of evidence. The law does not require perfection in documentation; it requires credible proof. Where multiple independent pieces of evidence corroborate one another and collectively establish the proceedee’s claim, isolated inconsistencies or documentary gaps cannot outweigh the cumulative force of the record. That is precisely the approach adopted in Alam Khan’s case, making the decision an important example of reasoned and evidence-based adjudication under the Foreigners Act.

The Final Verdict: Tribunal declares Alam Khan ‘not a foreigner’

Having examined the oral testimony, documentary evidence and the submissions advanced by both sides, the Foreigners Tribunal unequivocally held that the allegations made against Alam Khan could not be sustained. The Tribunal observed that the proceedee’s testimony, read together with the evidence of his biological mother and the documentary record produced before it, constituted a credible and reliable chain of evidence. It found no material on record that cast doubt upon the authenticity of the documents or the veracity of the witnesses. On the contrary, the Tribunal held that the evidence consistently established that Alam Khan belonged to a family that had been residing in Assam long before the statutory cut-off date and that he was the descendant of genuine Indian citizens.

Accordingly, by its order dated January 6, 2026, the Tribunal answered the reference in the negative, holding that Md. Alam Khan, son of Late Abdul Hakim Khan of village Katla, Barpeta, is not a foreigner within the meaning of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

The decision finally brought an end to a proceeding that had remained unresolved for over two decades, restoring to Alam Khan what should never have been placed in doubt—his recognition as an Indian citizen.

Alam Khan holds up the Foreigners’ Tribunal Order

Why this order matters

While the order grants relief to one individual, its importance lies in the principles it reinforces for citizenship adjudication before Foreigners Tribunals. First, the order demonstrates that family complexities cannot be viewed in isolation from social realities. Divorce, remarriage and blended family structures are lived realities across society. The absence of a birth certificate or the appearance of a step-parent’s name in electoral records cannot automatically negate a person’s citizenship. By accepting oral evidence that satisfactorily explained these circumstances, the Tribunal adopted an approach rooted in evidentiary fairness rather than technical formalism.

Secondly, the case highlights the consequences of administrative negligence. The inability to produce certain electoral records did not arise because Alam Khan had failed to preserve them; rather, the relevant public authority itself had failed to maintain those records. Had the Tribunal adopted an inflexible documentary standard, Alam Khan could have been penalised for omissions committed entirely by the State. Instead, the Tribunal assessed the available evidence in its entirety and declined to allow institutional lapses to determine the outcome of the proceedings.

Thirdly, the decision reiterates that the burden under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act is discharged through credible and cumulative evidence, not through the production of any one document in isolation. Legacy data, electoral rolls spanning several decades, land records, voter identity documents, certificates issued by local authorities and reliable witness testimony together formed an unbroken chain that satisfied the Tribunal. The order therefore reinforces the settled principle that citizenship claims must be evaluated on the basis of the totality of evidence rather than isolated discrepancies.

Finally, the order underscores the importance of effective legal representation in Foreigners Tribunal proceedings. Citizenship litigation often turns upon nuanced questions of evidence, lineage and documentary continuity. Alam Khan’s case demonstrates how careful legal strategy, supported by thorough documentation and credible witness testimony, can overcome seemingly insurmountable evidentiary hurdles.

A victory beyond the courtroom

For Alam Khan, the order marks far more than the conclusion of litigation. For years, the proceedings imposed severe emotional, social and financial burdens on a man whose livelihood depended on daily labour, farming and fishing. Living on the banks of the Dhumarkur River, Alam Khan has long battled forces beyond his control. Every monsoon, floodwaters enter his home, eroding both land and livelihood. Yet, for over two decades, nature was not his only adversary. As he poignantly puts it, “On one side, the floods threaten to wash away my home. On the other, the government sought to take away my citizenship.” His victory before the Foreigners Tribunal has ended one of those battles, even as the other returns with every monsoon.

Like countless individuals facing citizenship proceedings in Assam, he lived with the uncertainty that accompanies every notice, every hearing and every adjournment. The prolonged litigation affected not only his legal status but also his ability to live with dignity and security.

Upon learning of the Tribunal’s decision, Alam Khan broke down in tears. Describing the years of mental distress and financial hardship that accompanied the proceedings, he acknowledged that without the legal support extended by Citizens for Justice and Peace, it would have been extremely difficult for him to establish his citizenship and secure justice.

On July 26 2026, Advocate Abhijeet Choudhury and CJP Assam State In-charge Nanda Ghosh formally handed over the certified copy of the order to Alam Khan, symbolising the end of a legal struggle that had lasted almost twenty-six years.

CJP’s continuing commitment

Alam Khan’s case is another reminder of the indispensable role that sustained legal aid plays in protecting the rights of vulnerable communities facing citizenship proceedings in Assam. Over the years, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) has represented hundreds of economically and socially marginalised individuals before Foreigners Tribunals, assisting them in tracing legacy documents, reconstructing family histories, producing witnesses and navigating a complex legal process that is often inaccessible to those with limited means.

The organisation’s intervention in Alam Khan’s case illustrates that citizenship litigation is not merely about producing documents; it is about reconstructing lives, explaining family histories, addressing administrative failures and ensuring that constitutional guarantees are not defeated by poverty, illiteracy or bureaucratic lapses.

With this order, another individual has been spared the devastating consequences of an erroneous declaration of foreigner status. Yet the case also serves as a broader reminder that citizenship adjudication must remain anchored in fairness, careful appreciation of evidence and the rule of law.

The complete order may be read below:

Related:

When a narrow reading of documents decide citizenship: GHC in Aminul Hoque

‘Fairness & reason ‘: SC rules that due process is a must for citizenship determination

Gauhati High Court upholds foreigner declaration, rejects mental illness plea

When a Spelling Error Can Cost Citizenship: Supreme Court stays deportation of five Assam women

The post 26-Year Citizenship Battle Ends: Barpeta Tribunal rules Alam Khan is Indian appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Recent decisions of three different High Courts, the Bombay High Court, the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the Allahabad High Court, although arising from entirely different factual situations, reveal a remarkably consistent judicial approach towards police accountability. Each case concerns a distinct stage of the criminal process. The Bombay High Court examined the legality of custodial violence committed during investigation and the extent to which statutory protection under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could shield police officers accused of assaulting a suspect. The Madhya Pradesh High Court dealt with compliance with the newly enacted Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the constitutional requirement that every arrested person be informed, in writing, of the grounds of arrest. The Allahabad High Court, on the other hand, addressed what appeared at first glance to be a routine bail application but eventually transformed it into an inquiry into police negligence that had delayed adjudication of the applicants’ liberty.

Viewed independently, each judgment addresses a different procedural or substantive question. One concerns custodial violence, another concerns arrest procedure, and the third concerns administrative negligence in criminal proceedings. Yet, when read together, these decisions reveal an emerging constitutional narrative that extends well beyond their immediate facts. Collectively, they reject the notion that police accountability is confined to instances of spectacular misconduct such as torture or illegal detention. Instead, they emphasise that accountability permeates every stage of criminal administration—from the manner in which investigations are conducted, to the procedural safeguards accompanying arrest, to the institutional obligation of police authorities to cooperate with courts in the timely administration of justice.

Significantly, none of these judgments merely reiterates settled legal principles. Each court fashions remedies that seek to strengthen institutional compliance. The Bombay High Court refuses to allow police officers to invoke statutory immunity where allegations concern custodial assault to extract a confession, thereby reaffirming that violence cannot be characterised as an act performed in discharge of official duty. The Madhya Pradesh High Court, while declining to invalidate the arrest on the peculiar facts before it, nevertheless directs the Director General of Police to issue fresh circulars, warns that future violations of constitutional safeguards may invite departmental action, and treats repeated non-compliance with binding precedent as a matter of grave institutional concern. The Allahabad High Court goes a step further by imposing monetary costs on the State for police negligence that delayed adjudication of a bail application and permitting recovery of those costs from the erring officials after departmental enquiry.

What unites these judgments is not merely judicial criticism of the police. Courts have, on numerous occasions, criticised investigative lapses, custodial violence and administrative inefficiency. The significance of these three decisions lies in the manner in which the High Courts conceptualise police accountability. Rather than treating constitutional guarantees as abstract ideals, they recognise that the rule of law depends upon everyday institutional compliance. A police officer who assaults a suspect during investigation, an investigating officer who disregards mandatory constitutional safeguards while effecting an arrest, and officials whose negligence prolongs a person’s incarceration each undermine the administration of criminal justice, albeit in different ways. The constitutional injury is not confined to physical violence or illegal detention; it also extends to procedural disregard and bureaucratic indifference that compromise personal liberty and erode public confidence in the justice system.

Equally noteworthy is the evolving understanding of judicial supervision reflected in these decisions. Traditionally, courts have confined themselves to determining the legality of individual executive actions. These judgments demonstrate a willingness to move beyond adjudication of individual disputes towards ensuring institutional compliance. Directions to police headquarters, recommendations for departmental action, warnings of disciplinary proceedings, recovery of costs from erring officers, and rejection of statutory immunities collectively indicate that High Courts are increasingly employing their constitutional jurisdiction not merely to remedy individual violations but also to improve systemic functioning of law enforcement agencies. In doing so, they reaffirm the constitutional proposition that executive discretion remains subordinate to judicially enforceable standards of legality.

Another common feature is the courts’ refusal to permit procedural or statutory provisions to become instruments of impunity. In the Bombay case, Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, intended to protect honest public servants from vexatious litigation, is interpreted in a manner that prevents its misuse as a shield against allegations of custodial torture. In the Madhya Pradesh case, Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita is read in harmony with Article 22(1) and Supreme Court precedent, emphasising that communication of grounds of arrest is not a technical formality but a substantive constitutional guarantee. In the Allahabad case, the Court treats delays caused by police negligence not as mere administrative lapses but as failures that directly affect the timely adjudication of liberty.

These developments assume particular importance in the context of India’s ongoing transition from the Code of Criminal Procedure to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. While legislative reform has altered statutory language and introduced procedural modifications, these judgments underscore that the constitutional foundations governing criminal procedure remain unchanged. Police powers continue to derive their legitimacy from constitutional limitations rather than statutory discretion alone. Neither investigative convenience, administrative inefficiency nor claims of official duty can dilute the guarantees embedded in Articles 14, 21 and 22.

Against this backdrop, the three decisions merit close examination—not merely as isolated judicial pronouncements, but as markers of an emerging jurisprudence that insists upon constitutional discipline at every stage of policing. Each judgment contributes a distinct dimension to that jurisprudence. Read together, they illuminate how High Courts are increasingly deploying constitutional principles to strengthen police accountability, reinforce procedural safeguards, and preserve the rule of law in everyday criminal administration.

Custodial Violence Is Never ‘Official Duty’: Bombay High Court

The first judgment in this piece comes from the Bombay High Court, which reaffirmed a fundamental constitutional principle: the authority to investigate crime does not include the authority to use violence. In Sanjay Bapuso Dalvi & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra, the Court held that assaulting a suspect to extract a confession can never constitute an act performed in the discharge of official duty, thereby denying police officers the protection of Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Facts and the question before the court: The case arose from allegations that a man summoned to the Shivaji Nagar Police Station in Ichalkaranji during a murder investigation in November 2008 was detained overnight, assaulted and forced to confess. Following medical evidence and the complainant’s allegations, the Magistrate issued process against the police officers for offences including voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful confinement and criminal intimidation. The Sessions Court refused to discharge them.

Before the High Court, the officers argued that the alleged acts occurred during investigation of a cognisable offence and therefore attracted the protection of Section 197 CrPC, which bars prosecution of public servants for acts committed while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of official duty without prior governmental sanction.

The central issue was whether custodial assault allegedly committed to extract a confession could be regarded as an act connected with official duty.

Section 197 protects official functions, not abuse of power: Justice Sandesh Patil answered the question in the negative. The Court reiterated the settled principle that Section 197 is intended to protect honest public servants from vexatious litigation arising out of acts reasonably connected with their official responsibilities. It is not a substantive immunity from prosecution but a procedural safeguard available only where the impugned act bears a reasonable nexus with official duty.

Drawing upon the Constitution Bench decision in Matajog Dobey v. H.C. Bhari and subsequent rulings including Ganesh Chandra Jew v. State of Orissa, Om Prakash v. State of Jharkhand and Devinder Singh v. State of Punjab, the Court reaffirmed that even acts committed in excess of authority may require sanction if they remain connected to lawful official functions. However, criminal conduct wholly divorced from those functions cannot claim statutory protection merely because it occurred during official employment.

The distinction was decisive in the present case. Investigation of offences is undoubtedly an official function. Assaulting a suspect to secure a confession is not. The Court therefore rejected the argument that every act committed during an investigation automatically becomes an official act. The setting of the misconduct cannot determine its legal character.

Drawing a constitutional boundary: The Court emphasised that the police possess statutory authority to interrogate suspects, collect evidence and investigate offences, but no law authorises “third-degree” methods or custodial violence. Such conduct is not an excess committed while performing official duty; it is conduct wholly outside the scope of lawful police functions.

Justice Patil accordingly held that assaulting a suspect for a confessional statement “would never be said to be an act in discharge of official duty.” Accepting the prosecution case at face value—as required at the stage of issuance of process—the requirement of prior sanction under Section 197 had no application.

Importantly, the Court confined itself to the legal issue before it. It did not determine the guilt of the accused officers but only whether the prosecution could proceed without governmental sanction. Questions relating to the truth of the allegations were left to trial.

Constitutional significance: Although framed as a dispute over Section 197 CrPC, the judgment is rooted in the broader constitutional prohibition against custodial violence. It aligns with the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa and Nandini Satpathy v. P.L. Dani, all of which recognise that coercive interrogation is incompatible with Articles 20(3) and 21 of the Constitution.

The decision also reinforces the evidentiary policy underlying the law governing confessions. Indian criminal law has long treated police-obtained confessions with suspicion, recognising the dangers of coercive investigation. By refusing to extend statutory protection to allegations of custodial assault, the Bombay High Court ensures that Section 197 cannot become a procedural shield against accountability for torture.

More broadly, the judgment restores Section 197 to its intended purpose. The provision exists to protect bona fide exercise of public functions, not to immunise criminal misconduct. Had the Court accepted the petitioners’ argument, virtually every allegation of custodial violence could have been insulated behind the requirement of prior sanction simply because it occurred during an investigation.

Instead, the Court reaffirmed a fundamental constitutional proposition: official authority ends where illegality begins. Police powers derive legitimacy from law, and once those powers are exercised through violence or coercion, they cease to be protected as official acts. In doing so, the Bombay High Court laid down the first principle that runs through all three judgments—constitutional policing begins with recognising that the State’s coercive powers are always subject to constitutional limits.

The complete judgment may be read below:

Procedural Safeguards Are Constitutional Guarantees: Madhya Pradesh High Court

If the Bombay High Court’s decision placed substantive limits on police power, the Madhya Pradesh High Court focused on how that power must be exercised. In Dharmendra Lodhi v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the Court examined the constitutional requirement that an arrested person be informed of the grounds of arrest in writing under Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), while issuing far-reaching directions to ensure institutional compliance by the police.

Facts and the legal issue: The petitioner challenged his brother’s arrest under the NDPS Act through a habeas corpus petition, contending that the arrest was illegal because the investigating agency had failed to communicate the grounds of arrest in writing, as mandated by Section 47 BNSS and the Supreme Court’s decisions in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India, Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra and Vihaan Kumar v. State of Haryana.

The State argued that although no separate written memorandum of grounds of arrest had been served, the accused had received a written notice under Section 50 of the NDPS Act, the seizure memo recording recovery of 86.85 kilograms of ganja, and information regarding the arrest had been conveyed to his family. The question before the Court, therefore, was whether these documents constituted sufficient compliance with the constitutional requirement.

Section 47 BNSS gives statutory effect to Article 22: The Division Bench of Justices G.S. Ahluwalia and Anuradha Shukla treated Section 47 BNSS not as a mere procedural provision but as a statutory expression of Article 22(1) of the Constitution, which guarantees every arrested person the right to be informed of the grounds of arrest.

Relying on Pankaj Bansal, Mihir Rajesh Shah and Vihaan Kumar, the Court observed that the requirement of written communication is intended to eliminate disputes over whether the grounds of arrest were actually conveyed. Written communication enables an arrested person to effectively challenge detention, seek legal representation, oppose remand and apply for bail, thereby making Article 22 a meaningful safeguard rather than an empty formality.

Substantial compliance, but a strong institutional warning: On the facts, however, the Court declined to invalidate the arrest. It held that the Section 50 NDPS notice, the seizure memo signed by the accused and the communication made to his brother sufficiently informed him of the reasons for his arrest. Although no independent document titled “grounds of arrest” had been furnished, the constitutional objective underlying Section 47 BNSS stood substantially fulfilled.

The significance of the judgment, however, lies less in this conclusion than in what followed. The Bench expressed serious concern that investigating officers continued to violate binding constitutional requirements despite repeated Supreme Court decisions, earlier High Court rulings and even a circular issued by the Madhya Pradesh Police Headquarters directing strict compliance. Such repeated lapses, the Court observed, pointed either to negligence or deliberate disregard of constitutional safeguards—both of which it described as “alarming”.

In one of its strongest observations, the Court remarked that if investigating officers routinely ignored mandatory procedures, the police department had to introspect whether it was inadvertently helping offenders secure release through illegal arrests rather than effectively prosecuting them. Procedural safeguards, the Bench emphasised, strengthen criminal investigations; they do not weaken them.

From individual relief to institutional accountability: Recognising that constitutional rights cannot depend solely upon post facto judicial intervention, the Court issued prospective directions to the Director General of Police to circulate fresh instructions requiring strict compliance with Section 47 BNSS and the Supreme Court’s decisions. It further directed that where investigating officers violated these requirements, the department should ordinarily presume deliberate non-compliance, initiate departmental proceedings and consider suspension and major penalties.

These directions mark an important shift from correcting individual violations to addressing institutional deficiencies. Rather than treating procedural lapses as isolated mistakes, the Court sought to embed constitutional compliance within police administration itself.

Significance of the decision: The judgment expands the understanding of police accountability beyond cases of excessive force or illegal detention. It recognises that constitutional policing also demands faithful adherence to procedural safeguards governing arrest. By reading Section 47 BNSS as a statutory embodiment of Article 22, the Court reaffirmed that procedural requirements are not technicalities but constitutional guarantees protecting personal liberty.

Although the Court upheld the arrest on the peculiar facts of the case, it left no ambiguity about the law going forward. Police powers remain legitimate only when exercised in accordance with constitutional procedure. Compliance with written grounds of arrest is therefore not a matter of administrative convenience but an indispensable component of due process.

In doing so, the Madhya Pradesh High Court adds a second dimension to the emerging jurisprudence on police accountability. While the Bombay High Court held that custodial violence can never be protected as official duty, the Madhya Pradesh High Court emphasised that even lawful police powers lose constitutional legitimacy when exercised without scrupulous adherence to mandatory procedural safeguards.

The complete judgment may be read below:

Administrative Negligence as a Constitutional Wrong: Allahabad High Court

If the Bombay High Court’s decision drew a constitutional boundary around the misuse of police power, and the Madhya Pradesh High Court underscored that lawful policing is inseparable from procedural fairness, the Allahabad High Court’s decision introduces a third, and equally significant, dimension to constitutional policing. It recognises that the rule of law may be undermined not only through abuse of authority or violation of procedural safeguards, but also through institutional indifference, bureaucratic inertia and administrative negligence.

Unlike the previous two cases, the controversy before the Court did not concern custodial violence, illegal arrest or investigative excesses. It arose from what appeared to be an ordinary bail application. Yet, in deciding that application, Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal transformed a routine criminal proceeding into a broader examination of how police inaction can obstruct judicial administration and unnecessarily prolong deprivation of personal liberty.

The judgment is important because it expands the constitutional understanding of police accountability beyond the exercise of coercive powers. It reminds that the constitutional obligations of investigating agencies do not end with lawful arrest or fair investigation. They equally encompass timely cooperation with judicial proceedings. Where police negligence delays adjudication of liberty, the constitutional injury is no less significant merely because it results from omission rather than affirmative abuse of power.

Facts and background: The proceedings arose from a bail application filed by the parents-in-law of a deceased woman, who were accused of offences under Sections 80(2) and 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita read with Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

Upon examining the material on record, the Court found no sufficient evidence indicating that the applicants had subjected the deceased to cruelty or harassment for dowry soon before her death. The statements of independent witnesses pointed instead to ordinary matrimonial discord between the husband and wife. Finding no material to sustain the allegations against the parents-in-law, the Court concluded that they were entitled to bail.

Ordinarily, the matter would have ended there. Instead, before disposing of the application, the Court turned to an entirely different question—why a bail application that could have been decided much earlier had remained pending for more than ten additional days.

The answer, according to the Court, lay not in judicial delay or legal complexity, but in the repeated failure of the investigating agency to furnish the necessary instructions and case diary despite repeated communications from the High Court. It was this administrative lapse, rather than the merits of the bail application itself, that became the central focus of the judgment.

The institutional failure that prompted judicial intervention: The chronology recorded by the Court revealed a sustained pattern of administrative indifference rather than an isolated procedural lapse.

The Office of the Joint Director (Prosecution), attached to the Allahabad High Court, supplied a copy of the bail application to the police pairokar on June 17, 2026. This was followed by an alert to the Superintendent of Police on June 19 and a reminder on June 29. Despite these repeated communications, the investigating agency failed to furnish the necessary instructions to enable the Government Advocate to assist the Court.

Even when the matter was taken up on 3 July 2026, the Court attempted to facilitate compliance by directing the prosecution to obtain the case diary electronically through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), thereby eliminating any practical difficulty in transmitting records.

Yet even this direction went unheeded. Instead of producing the case diary, the police supplied only the criminal antecedents of the accused, leaving the Court without the material necessary to decide the bail application. The sequence demonstrated that the delay was not the consequence of unavoidable administrative constraints. The High Court had repeatedly reminded the investigating agency, suggested alternative methods of compliance and afforded ample opportunity to furnish the requisite records. Nevertheless, the necessary instructions remained unavailable, preventing timely adjudication of a matter directly affecting personal liberty.

Translating judicial censure into institutional accountability: Having concluded that the delay in deciding the bail application was attributable solely to police negligence, the Court declined to treat the lapse as a matter warranting only administrative criticism. Instead, it imposed costs of ₹50,000 upon the State Government, directing that the amount be paid to the applicants. Simultaneously, it granted the State liberty to recover the amount from the erring officials after conducting an appropriate departmental enquiry.

This direction is perhaps the most significant aspect of the judgment. Indian courts have frequently expressed dissatisfaction with administrative inefficiency or investigative lapses, but far fewer decisions translate such criticism into enforceable consequences. By imposing monetary costs, the Court recognised that bureaucratic negligence is not a victimless administrative failure. Where executive inaction delays adjudication of liberty, the prejudice is suffered by litigants whose incarceration continues solely because the State failed to discharge its institutional obligations.

Equally significant is the Court’s refusal to allow the burden of that negligence to remain permanently upon the public exchequer. By permitting recovery from the responsible officials after due enquiry, the judgment carefully distinguishes between institutional liability and individual accountability. The State remains constitutionally answerable for the functioning of its agencies, but the financial consequences of proven negligence need not ultimately be borne by taxpayers. In doing so, the Court fashioned a remedy that simultaneously compensates those affected, reinforces governmental responsibility and preserves personal accountability within the police hierarchy.

More importantly, the order signals that constitutional accountability is not exhausted by declarations of illegality. Administrative indifference that obstructs judicial proceedings may itself attract tangible consequences. The judgment therefore moves beyond symbolic judicial disapproval and adopts a remedial approach aimed at improving institutional discipline within the criminal justice system.

The complete judgment may be read below:

Police Accountability: From individual misconduct to institutional constitutionalism

At first glance, the three High Court decisions appear to address entirely different questions. The Bombay High Court considered whether police officers accused of custodial assault could invoke the protection of Section 197 CrPC. The Madhya Pradesh High Court examined whether the constitutional requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest in writing under Article 22 and Section 47 BNSS had been complied with. The Allahabad High Court dealt with police negligence that delayed adjudication of a bail application.

Read individually, each judgment resolves a distinct procedural issue. Read together, however, they articulate a broader constitutional doctrine on police accountability. The common thread running through all three decisions is that the legitimacy of policing does not flow merely from statutory powers but from faithful adherence to constitutional limitations. Police accountability is no longer confined to punishing overt abuse such as custodial violence or illegal detention. It now extends to every stage of the criminal justice process—from investigation and arrest to procedural fairness, administrative diligence and cooperation with judicial institutions.

The Bombay High Court establishes the first principle: official duty cannot be used as a shield for unconstitutional conduct. Custodial assault and coercive violence are fundamentally incompatible with lawful policing and therefore fall outside the protection of Section 197 CrPC. The decision reinforces that statutory immunity exists to protect bona fide public functions, not acts that violate Article 21.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court adds a second dimension by treating procedural safeguards as constitutional guarantees rather than technical formalities. Reading Section 47 BNSS through Article 22 and the Supreme Court’s decisions in Pankaj Bansal, Mihir Rajesh Shah and Vihaan Kumar, the Court holds that informing an arrested person of the grounds of arrest in writing is integral to constitutional fairness. More importantly, it moves beyond the individual case to address systemic police non-compliance, directing institutional reforms and departmental accountability so that constitutional safeguards become part of everyday policing rather than case-specific judicial corrections.

The Allahabad High Court completes the trilogy by recognising that constitutional injury may arise not only from misuse of power but also from administrative indifference. Police accountability includes the obligation to assist the administration of justice with diligence and efficiency. By imposing costs of ₹50,000 on the State for avoidable delay in deciding a bail application, directing payment to the applicants, permitting recovery from erring officers after departmental enquiry, and ordering an inquiry into the lapses, the Court converts bureaucratic negligence into a matter of constitutional accountability. Administrative omissions that unnecessarily prolong deprivation of liberty are treated as inconsistent with Article 21 no less than affirmative executive misconduct.

Collectively, these judgments also demonstrate the evolving role of constitutional courts. Rather than merely correcting completed legal wrongs, the High Courts increasingly function as institutional supervisors, issuing directions aimed at improving governance, strengthening internal accountability mechanisms and embedding constitutional discipline within police administration. Whether by denying statutory protection to officers accused of custodial violence, directing police authorities to institutionalise compliance with arrest safeguards, or imposing financial consequences for administrative negligence, the courts are moving beyond dispute resolution towards structural constitutional oversight.

Equally significant is the continuity they establish despite the transition to India’s new criminal laws. Although the BNSS has replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, these decisions affirm that legislative reform cannot dilute constitutional guarantees. The Constitution—and particularly Articles 21 and 22—continues to provide the normative framework within which every police power must be exercised.

Taken together, the three judgments articulate an emerging constitutional ethic of policing founded upon three interconnected propositions:

• Police powers cannot be exercised through violence or coercion that falls outside lawful investigation.
• Every exercise of coercive authority must comply with constitutional and statutory procedural safeguards protecting personal liberty.
• Police institutions bear a continuing obligation to function diligently, transparently and responsibly in aid of the administration of justice.

The cumulative message is both simple and profound. Constitutional policing is measured not merely by the absence of abuse, but by affirmative fidelity to the rule of law at every stage of the criminal justice process. In reaffirming that principle, the Bombay, Madhya Pradesh and Allahabad High Courts have collectively advanced an important and evolving doctrine of institutional constitutionalism—one in which police legitimacy derives not from the breadth of statutory power, but from disciplined adherence to constitutional values.

Related:

The Dalmandi Judgment: Allahabad HC clears way for religious site acquisition

‘Fairness & reason ‘: SC rules that due process is a must for citizenship determination

After 30 years, Orissa high court orders SBI to pay for Rs. 40 lakh to two bank sweepers

When uniformed personnel stand accused India’s highest courts have spoken boldly yet acted narrowly

The post Three High Courts, One Message: Police power has constitutional limits appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Intervention by UN Special Rapporteurs

According to the signatories, the United Nations has already taken note of this crisis. In May 2026, UN experts wrote to the Indian government to raise alarm over human rights violations caused by the SIR process, particularly noting the severe impact on Muslims and Bengali minorities in West Bengal.

“The UN Special Rapporteurs (UNSRs) of the UN Human Rights Council, by a Joint communication dated 1 May, 2026… formally raised many concerns regarding the SIR process. It is a communication by UNSR on Minority Issues along with the UNSR on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the UNSR on freedom of religion or belief, citing violations of human rights, particularly of the Muslim minorities in India due to the SIR process in India. It has further highlighted the SIR process in West Bengal, considering it as a matter of ‘particular concern’.”

The Bihar SIR: disproportionate exclusions

It is further stated by the petitioners that while the ECI claimed the revision was meant to ensure only eligible voters were listed, a 2025 pilot program in Bihar showed alarming bias. Millions of voters were removed in under 100 days. Muslims, women, and the poor were heavily targeted, with very few allowed to successfully appeal their deletion.

“According to the ECI, the goal of the SIR process is to ensure that ‘the names of all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll’… The ECI ordered a SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar in 2025, seeking to re-verify the eligibility of over 81 million electors within a compressed timeline of less than 100 days. Muslims-approximately 17% of the state’s population-accounted for roughly one-third of the 4.7 million voters removed… Women reportedly constituted nearly 60% of those excluded from the draft rolls, despite comprising 47.8% of the electorate…” as stated 

52 million names deleted nationwide

According to the petition to the NHRC, following the Bihar SIR, the SIR process was expanded to 12 States and Union Territories. An estimated 52 million names were erased. West Bengal was hit the hardest, losing 9.1 million voters. People with valid IDs were removed over tiny spelling mistakes, with Muslims bearing the brunt of these deletions.

“Across the 12 States and Union Territories, approximately 52 million names have allegedly been removed, with West Bengal particularly affected, where a total of 9.1 million names were reportedly deleted from the register… Muslim voters are reported to have accounted for 34% of total deletions, against a 27% share of the State’s population; nearly two-thirds of those deleted belong to the minority community. It is reported that approximately 95% of deleted voters were Muslim… on the pretext of minor and administratively common spelling inconsistencies”  as wrote

Organised targeting via ‘Form 7’

The representation further emphasises that while the law allows citizens to object to names on the voter list using ‘Form 7’, this tool was hijacked by political affiliates to run organised campaigns meant to strike Muslims from the voter rolls in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam.

“Reports indicate that, in several States, this mechanism was used for organised, large-scale campaigns targeting Muslim residents: in Gujarat’s Somnath constituency, over 15,000 Form 7 applications are reported to have been filed by just 269 individuals… In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, over 11,000 such applications were filed, several traced to BJP-affiliated individuals… In Assam… the Chief Minister is reported to have publicly directed party workers to file such applications against Bengali-speaking Muslim residents, stating in January 2026 that a specified number of such residents ‘will get deleted’ and that his ‘job is to make them suffer’…”

The use of opaque AI systems

According to the signatories, to flag errors in voter data, the government used an Artificial Intelligence system. This system operated without transparency, meaning nobody knows its error rates or if it was biased against certain communities, leading to millions losing their right to vote without proper due process.

“The exercise reportedly employed an AI-driven system to flag ‘irregularities’ in voter data, without adequate transparency regarding its methodology, error rates, or safeguards against bias raising serious due-process concerns given the scale and finality of the consequences (loss of the right to vote) that flow from such flagging.”

Leaders conflating citizens with “infiltrators”

It is further stated by the petitioners that top government officials have publicly used dangerous language, referring to deleted voters as illegal immigrants. By using terms like “infiltrators” and “purifying” the voter rolls, leaders are turning legitimate Indian Muslim citizens into targets for discrimination.

It is further pointed out that “We submit that such statements by holders of high public office, made in the context of an ongoing administrative exercise, are liable to conflate lawful Indian Muslim citizens with foreign nationals… the Union Home Minister described the exercise in terms of a ‘Detect, Delete and Deport’ formula, and separately characterised it as a mechanism to ‘purify’ electoral rolls of ‘infiltrators’… risk normalising discriminatory treatment of a religious minority in the conduct of a State function.”

The Supreme Court’s “structurally impossible” timelines

The minimalist reliefs granted by the Supreme Court are also mentioned. According to the representation, when taken to the Supreme Court, the judiciary declined to stop the process. For West Bengal, the Court gave removed voters just a few days to file and win appeals before the elections. Because there were 3.4 million appeals, this timeline made it completely impossible for the tribunals to give anyone a fair hearing. It is stated that “The Supreme Court of India declined to stay the SIR process (order dated 6 April 2026)… the Supreme Court permitted West Bengal voters removed from the rolls to regain voting rights if their appeals were allowed by appellate tribunals before 21 and 27 April 2026… a compressed adjudicatory timetable applied to an exercise involving over 3.4 million appeals, which the Petitioner submits made it structurally impossible for tribunals to conduct fair and effective review of each case.”

The violation of international human rights

The NHRC has been alerted to the fact that the UN Special Rapporteurs have warned that removing millions of minorities from voter lists based on discriminatory rhetoric violates international treaties. Denying citizens their basic right to vote is a direct violation of human rights.

The communication explicitly expressed concern about discriminatory rhetorics by politicians and senior public figures… ‘amount to potential incitement to discrimination within the meaning of article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’… The Special Rapporteurs noted that the removal of an entire religious community through the SIR process risks constituting ‘an official endorsement of discriminatory attitudes towards Muslim citizens’… Therefore, we respectfully submit that being denied the ability to participate in the electoral process i.e., the right to vote and to be represented, is in itself a violation of human rights.

The appeal to the NHRC

According to the signatories, because the NHRC failed to step in during the initial Bihar pilot, the petitioners are now demanding that the Commission use its legal powers immediately. They want the NHRC to register a formal complaint, demand data from the Election Commission, hold open public hearings, and halt any further voter revisions until an investigation is done.

The signatories request the NHRC to:

“(a)  take cognizance of and register the present representation as a formal complaint under Section 12(a)(i), 12(a)(ii), 12(b) read with section 12(d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993;

(b)  call for detailed reports from the relevant authorities such as Election Commission of India, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, and the concerned State Election Machinery of Bihar and West Bengal, under Section 13 of the PHR Act, disclosing (i) the exact numbers of names deleted, State- and constituency-wise, with reasons for deletion; (ii) the number of objections and appeals filed and their outcomes; and (iii) data disaggregated by religion, caste/community and gender of persons excluded and of persons subsequently declared ineligible;

(c)  Immediately constitute and conduct an open, online public hearing into the matter  by summoning the petitioners, so that the allegations herein may be examined transparently and on record- even before issuance of notice to the Election Commission of India so that this Hon’ble Full Commission may have the benefit of hearing our presentations prior to issuing of such notice;

(d) Thereafter summon responsible officials of the Election Commission of India and the concerned Ministries to appear before the Commission and respond to the specific allegations set out herein, including in relation to the design, transparency and safeguards of the AI-driven flagging system used in the SIR exercise;

(e)  recommend, as an interim measure pending completion of the inquiry, that further extension or replication of the SIR exercise to additional States/Union Territories be held in abeyance, and that adequate time, transparent procedures and effective remedial mechanisms be put in place for any ‘claims and objections’ process already underway;

(f)  recommend such accountability measures in respect of public statements by functionaries that the Commission finds to have been discriminatory or to have incited hostility against a religious or linguistic minority; and

(g)  pass such other and further orders/recommendations as this Hon’ble Commission may deem fit and proper in the interest of justice.

(h)) In view of the recommendations been made by the Office of High Commission, this Hon’ble Commission should also provide them an opportunity of presenting their legal positions to the Commission in the light of international human rights law by way of an online hearing.”

NHRC set up under the Paris Principles

It is under India’s international obligations to international human rights standards that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India was established on October 12, 1993, under the Protection of Human Rights Act (PHRA), 1993. The PHRA and the NHRC are designed to comply with the United Nations Paris Principles, which set the foundational global standards for National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) regarding autonomy, mandate, and independence.

Signatories of the representation

According to the document, the representation was signed by a coalition of eminent citizens and specialists including M G Devasahayam IAS (Retd), Convener, Forum for Electoral Integrity Jawhar Sircar IAS (Retd), Madhav Deshpande, Software Specialist, Venkatesh Nayak, RTI Specialist and Dr. Sant Prakash, Professor, Delhi University.

The representation dated July 23, 2026 can be accessed from here:

Related:

UN Rights Experts flag Discrimination in ECI’s SIR exercise, seek India’s response

Disenfranchisement route to Majoritarian Rule: Political Logic of SIR

Exclusive Investigation SIR: How many voters did the ECI actually disenfranchise? Why do final figures show inexplicable ‘additions’?

Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded?

The post ‘Forum for Electoral Integrity’ petitions NHRC over mass voter disenfranchisement under SIR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Delhi Police subsequently clarified that the order was not connected to the ongoing protests. In an official statement, the police said the authorisation was a “routine, quarterly extension” of powers under the NSA, issued on July 7, 2026, before the CJP protests began. The police maintained that no separate request had been initiated in relation to the protests and that the order had been “misinterpreted out of context.” The ANI post was later removed.

“Misleading information is circulating on social media claiming that the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, has been granted detention powers under the National Security Act (NSA) specifically to suppress the ongoing CJP protests. 

In this regard, it is officially clarified that the order in question is a routine, quarterly extension of powers under the NSA, which is conventionally renewed every three months. The current renewal was issued on 07.07.2026 for the period effective from 19.07.2026 to 18.10.2026, predating the commencement of the CJP protests.

Furthermore, no specific request was initiated for this order in relation to recent events. The renewal constitutes a standard administrative procedure and has been misinterpreted out of context.”

Misleading information is circulating on social media claiming that the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, has been granted detention powers under the National Security Act (NSA) specifically to suppress the ongoing CJP protests.
In this regard, it is officially clarified that the…

— Delhi Police (@DelhiPolice) July 23, 2026

But the controversy cannot be reduced to whether the NSA order was specifically issued against the protesters. The fear it generated reflects a deeper crisis of trust between the state and citizens exercising their right to dissent.

For a generation of students and young protesters, preventive detention powers do not exist as abstract legal provisions. They are understood through recent experiences of how the state has responded to mass movements. During the anti-CAA-NRC protests, Delhi witnessed widespread use of criminal cases, arrests and police action against students, activists and demonstrators. During the anti-CAA-NRC protests, thousands were detained. Several students and activists were arrested and booked under serious criminal provisions. Among those arrested were students such as Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, who spent months in custody in the Delhi riots conspiracy case before being granted bail by the Delhi High Court, and Gulfisha Fatima, who was also arrested under stringent provisions including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Many, including Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam still remain behind bars without a trial.

Read CJP’s analysis on how NSA has been used against human rights defenders here.

The same concerns were visible during the farmers’ protests, where the state response involved extensive policing, preventive measures and criminal action against those associated with the movement. On January 26, 2021, following clashes during the Republic Day tractor march, several farmers and protesters were arrested and booked under multiple criminal provisions. Farmer leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, faced police cases and notices during the agitation. In February 2021, climate activist Disha Ravi was arrested by Delhi Police in connection with the ‘toolkit’ case related to the farmers’ protests and was later granted bail by a Delhi court. The Delhi Police’s deployment of barricades, restrictions on movement and preventive measures around protest sites also became a central feature of the state’s response to the mobilisation.

It is this history that gives significance to the appearance of NSA powers during another major protest movement. Even if the authorisation was routine, the episode demonstrates how the repeated use, or perceived availability, of exceptional state powers can create a climate of apprehension among protesters. When citizens already fear detention, surveillance and criminalisation, ambiguity around the expansion of such powers can have a chilling effect on participation in democratic protest.

The NSA is among India’s most powerful preventive detention laws. Unlike ordinary criminal proceedings, where the state must prove an offence through a trial, preventive detention allows the authorities to restrict liberty based on an anticipated threat. This extraordinary power has long been criticised for placing significant discretion in executive hands and for weakening ordinary safeguards of criminal justice.

Dubbed as India’s draconian version of the Rowlatt Act, read a legal history of the repressive provisions here.

The constitutional concern is not merely about one order or one protest. It is about the normalisation of exceptional measures in managing dissent. A democracy cannot measure public order only through the absence of protests; it must also consider whether citizens are able to organise, criticise and demand accountability without fear of punitive state action.

The rights to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1) (a), peaceful assembly under Article 19(1)(b), and personal liberty under Article 21 are not conditional rights available only when the state is comfortable with the message being expressed. Restrictions may be imposed in accordance with law, but the use of coercive powers against protest movements requires the highest level of scrutiny.

The Delhi Police clarification may establish that the NSA renewal was not a measure introduced for the CJP and other organisation student-led protests. However, the reaction to the ANI tweet reveals a larger and uncomfortable reality: years of aggressive state responses to dissent have created an environment where even routine assertions of extraordinary powers are perceived through the lens of possible repression.

The question, therefore, is not only whether the NSA order was connected to this protest. The larger question is why protesters in India have come to view preventive detention powers as a warning rather than merely an administrative procedure.

Related:

Youth Uprising: A protest, a brute crackdown, a continuing countrywide response

Mumbai stands with students, but the state pushes back

The exam crisis that became a battle for accountability

Brute Police Action: Mumbai’s crackdown on protestors in solidarity with CJP & Student Groups, AISF, SFI & AISA

The post A deleted tweet, an NSA order, and the shadow of past crackdowns appeared first on SabrangIndia.