New Delhi: After ostensibly claiming the ‘application’ of Section 163 of the BNSS (which empowers district magistrates, sub-divisional magistrates, and other executive magistrates to issue temporary ‘special orders’ in the interest of preventing ‘obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety or a disturbance of the public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray’ in a region under unavoidable circumstances through written notice to concerned parties or the public) in and around the Jantar Mantar Protest site on 2 October 2026, the Delhi police on 4 October 2026 announced similar restrictions on public gatherings till as far as the India Gate circle, effectively placing a massive portion of the administrative district on lockdown.

But an analysis of the recent weekly issues of the Gazette of India, through which such public notifications are required to be made by governments, organisations, and individuals alike, reveals that no such magisterial order has been notified either in the 26 September to 2 October Gazette, nor in the 3 October to 9 October Gazette.

An on-ground survey of deployed officials on 2 October and 4 October also found that no such order was present on site, and many officials were not even aware of what the section entails.

“We don’t know, you google it,” said IPS officer Shrishti Pandey, in-charge of security operations at the India Gate C-Hexagon which saw the detentions of at least 400 individuals on site after the repeated, but vague announcements of ‘section 163’ being ‘in place’. Large numbers of officials also became mum and ceased their brutal detention operations upon being asked to produce the written magisterial order that they claim is authorising them to ban and restrict public gatherings, with many of them confessing that they “do not know” what section 163 is. Female officers of the South West district who were on duty without name plates refused to identify themselves, and stated that they were unaware if such a written order in fact exists or the exact provisions/restrictions it entailed for the alleged security operations currently ongoing in the New Delhi district, stating that they received a call to show up on site on a digital messaging group.

“We are not from this district, we don’t know anything,” said a constable without nameplate who refused to identify herself. “We just got a message on the group that we had to come here.”

“In cases where, in the opinion of a District Magistrate, a Sub-divisional Magistrate or any other Executive Magistrate specially empowered by the State Government in this behalf, there is sufficient ground for proceeding under this section and immediate prevention or speedy remedy is desirable, such Magistrate may, by a written order stating the material facts of the case and served in the manner provided by section 153, direct any person to abstain from a certain act or to take certain order with respect to certain property in his possession or under his management, if such Magistrate considers that such direction is likely to prevent, or tends to prevent, obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety or a disturbance of the public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray,” Section 163 of the BNSS says. Section 153 in reference details that such a notice may be served directly to individual parties or via proclamation to the public at large.

DCP Sachin Sharma in a press conference on 2 October said that, “Section 163 has been imposed in the area and I request everyone to follow the law and to co-operate with the police. 163 BNSS is imposed in New Delhi, so any unauthorised demonstration is not allowed.” But upon repeated inquiries from journalists on field where Sharma could be seen encouraging and even participating in the use of excessive force towards protesters under this alleged order, he repeatedly declined to comment on what the precise details of the order were or whether such an order even exists.

The Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that the mechanical imposition of prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (whose equivalent is Section 163 in the BNSS) cannot be used to quell dissent or expression of grievances in a democracy. The Court emphasized that the application of the provision should be limited to situations of emergency and that repetitive orders under Section 144, such as in the case of the ongoing protests against Gyanesh Kumar, would be abuse of power. And this is in the case where an order under the section has indeed been passed and published.

An analysis of all Section 163 (erstwhile Section 144) orders passed in 2021 by SSRN revealed that the colloquialisation of the section enables and exacerbates its misuse, and found that in the miniscule 1.5% of cases of the section’s use where orders restricting public freedoms has in fact been issued, police often bypassed the legal requirement of ‘publication’ by simply posting printed notices in government offices, which never reach public circulation.

“[The Section] is one of a few legal provisions that has, over time, assumed a meaning of its own. “144 has been imposed” is how many Indians have come to label the utilisation of extraordinary powers vested in agents of the state to suspend civil liberties in the interests of maintaining public order,” the research said. This misinformation is one that the Delhi police is actively peddling in its ongoing actions, despite the fact that a massive 98.5% of orders issued annually tend to have nothing to do with constitutional freedoms such as public assemblies at all.

‘Section 163’ cannot be understood as synonymous with ‘five or more people cannot gather in this region’ as the thousands of police officers swarming the capital from all over Delhi’s districts are deluding the public into believing and have likely been led to believe themselves: the ‘material facts’ of such special orders—the precise nature of restrictions, the exact geographical boundation within which those restrictions apply, the resources allocated to impose said restrictions (number of police personnel, number of allotted detention buses, anti-riot materials, use of chemical ordnances, water cannons, shotguns, lethal ammunition—are crucial to the public’s understanding of the ‘law’ they are being asked to follow, and the authorised consequences they may face for violating it.

“Headlines announcing the imposition of Section 144 regularly flash on our television and phone screens,” the paper says. “[But] without access to these orders, we can only rely on such news articles to find out the scope of the restrictions imposed.”

The written order is also essential to justifying the restrictions being placed upon citizens, which, as the Supreme Court held in Gulam Abbas v. State of U.P. (1982), should occur only in extreme situations, and in another case held that the repetitive and arbitrary use of the section would constitute ‘abuse of power’.

“It is only in an extremely extraordinary situation, when other measures are bound to fail, that a total prohibition or suspension of their rights may be resorted to as a last measure,” the court said. “If repetitive orders are made it would clearly amount to abuse of the power conferred by Section 144 of the Code,” said a three judge bench in Acharya Jagdishwaranand Avadhuta case (1983).

So when the Delhi Police tells its citizens that ‘Section 163’ has been imposed here and there, will it please show them the orders? For all we know, the temporary restrictions may simply be on the sending and receiving of couriers within New Delhi, as SSRN found 43% of Section 163 orders historically have been.

Mouli Sharma is a journalist based in New Delhi. She currently writes for GroundXero, and her work has appeared in various publications.