The detention of protesters across the national capital this week, while demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged electoral irregularities, has raised questions over the Delhi Police’s failure to make publicly available Section 163 prohibitory orders that it says are in force. The provision empowers an Executive Magistrate to issue written orders when “immediate prevention or a speedy remedy” is necessary to prevent danger to human life or safety, disturbance of public tranquillity, or other specified threats.
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A Section 163 BNSS order accessed by The Hindu, issued on August 23 by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ajay Sharma, shows that the restrictions are confined to the Parliament Street police sub-division and expressly exclude a specifically demarcated area at Jantar Mantar Road. The order, in force until October 21, prohibits assemblies of five or more persons, public meetings, processions, slogan-shouting, and speeches, among other activities.
Further, an X post made on October 3 by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), New Delhi, states that Section 163 BNSS prohibitory orders are in force across the New Delhi district, barring unauthorised gatherings, processions and dharnas, and that no permission has been granted for any protest. The post, however, neither carries copies of the orders nor specifies how long the restrictions will remain in force.
Meanwhile, protesters have been detained at locations beyond the Parliament Street police sub-division, including Connaught Place (CP). At a protest in CP on Sunday (October 11, 2026), Opposition leaders and several protesters were detained, along with a dozen journalists who alleged that they were taken to detention centres despite displaying their press cards.
Restrictions have also been put in place around Jantar Mantar, with adjoining roads heavily barricaded and police personnel deployed at access points, even as a demarcated area at Jantar Mantar Road falls outside the ambit of the August 23 order. On Wednesday (October 14), protesters attempting to march towards Jantar Mantar, which has been de-notified as a designated protest site, were stopped by barricades on Firoz Shah Road. The protests followed the arrest of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das earlier in the day for allegedly entering the area “without permission” the previous day.
Delhi Police sources refused to confirm to The Hindu whether separate Section 163 BNSS orders for the other sub-divisions of the New Delhi district — Connaught Place, Chanakyapuri and Barakhamba Road — or for the Jantar Mantar area had been made publicly available. They said hoardings had been put up and announcements were being made in these areas informing people that prohibitory orders were in force.
A hoarding seen by The Hindu near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, around 10 km from Jantar Mantar, on October 10 stated that a prohibitory order under Section 163 of the BNSS “has been enforced in the Delhi area” to maintain peace and law and order. It listed prohibited activities, including gatherings of five or more persons, processions and rallies, and provocative slogan-shouting, and warned of legal action against violators. However, it did not mention the date on which the underlying order was issued or the period for which the restrictions would remain in force.
‘Statutory mandate’
Former Supreme Court judge Abhay S. Oka said making prohibitory orders publicly available was necessary to give effect to the statutory right under Section 163(5) of the BNSS, which allows an aggrieved person to seek their rescission or alteration.
“When sub-section (5) of Section 163 expressly gives liberty to any person aggrieved by prohibitory orders to apply for modification or cancellation, there is a statutory mandate that the orders be published in the public domain. They cannot be kept confidential,” Mr. Oka said. He added that public announcements or hoardings merely stating that prohibitory orders were in force would not satisfy this requirement.
Mr. Oka also pointed out that the August 23 order does not indicate whether an enquiry was conducted before concluding that immediate preventive action was necessary. “Such orders curtail fundamental rights and must be preceded by a detailed enquiry,” he said.
Delhi-based advocate Abhinav Sekhri said the lack of public access to such orders was not new. A 2023 report, “The Use and Misuse of Section 144 CrPC”, co-authored by Mr. Sekhri and lawyers Vrinda Bhandari, Natasha Maheshwari and Madhav Aggarwal, had flagged that the Delhi Police routinely failed to make such orders publicly available. Section 144 of the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was replaced by Section 163 of the BNSS in 2024.
“For our research, we got access to a lot of these orders through Right to Information responses,” Mr. Sekhri said. He also pointed to the practice of reissuing “cyclostyled” orders as soon as their two-month statutory limit expired to restrict public gatherings.
“Even if Jantar Mantar has been de-notified as a protest site, any Section 163 order applicable there must be publicly available. The hoardings put up in parts of central Delhi merely state that prohibitory orders are in force, without specifying their territorial limits or the period for which they will remain in force,” he said.
Former IPS officer R.K. Vij said detaining protesters in areas where the applicable Section 163 BNSS orders had not been made publicly available would be unlawful. “Police authorities are mandatorily required to issue and upload such orders on their websites so that people are aware of the restrictions in force and their precise terms. The uploads are time-stamped to provide a clear record of when an order was first placed in the public domain,” he said.
Plea before SC
The absence of publicly available prohibitory orders has also been raised before the Supreme Court by B.Tech student Samriddhi Das, who alleged that police restrictions prevented her from reaching a protest site on October 10. Her petition, filed through advocates Nipun Saxena and Ashima Mandla, alleged that the Delhi Police had “mischievously” failed to upload the prohibitory order purportedly restricting access to and around Jantar Mantar on their website.
The petition is listed for hearing before the Supreme Court on Thursday (October 15).
(With inputs from Vijaita Singh and Lavpreet Kaur)