‘Enlighten us’ on the prohibitory orders, preserve all CCTV footage: Supreme Court directs Centre, police

The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 15, 2026) directed the Union government to “enlighten” it about the prohibitory orders slapped on Delhi that led to mass detentions of people, particularly journalists, lawyers and protesters, during the October 10 demonstrations to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

“We want to be enlightened about the prohibitory orders issued under S. 163 BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023),” Justice Joymalya Bagchi, part of the two-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, said.

Petitioners have complained that there cannot be Section 163 orders in contiguous areas, and these orders have not been not made public.

The prohibitive orders were a “ghost” as of now, Justice Bagchi said, and the court would bring them under constitutional scrutiny after the government’s response in an affidavit.

Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas, who was present in the crowded court room, intervened to narrate how he had been “pounced upon” by security personnel while addressing the media on the streets. He had written to the Chief Justice about it, he said. The CJI asked him to file a petition.

The court passed a general order to the authorities to preserve “all CCTV footage” concerning the protest, including of detention centres where people had been kept for hours.

The Bench directed the Centre to explain the denotification of Jantar Mantar on a petition which said the move was meant to distance dissent away from the power centres in the national capital. But the court refused to pass any interim orders on the issue without first hearing from the authorities, who said the denotification was not based on a Supreme Court order of October 9, but after getting expert opinion.

Senior advocate Mukta Gupta, appearing for Swaty Singh, the petitioner in the Jantar Mantar petition, said protesters must be within earshot of the people in power, and Jantar Mantar was proximate to institutions of authority.

Justice Bagchi responded on the distance factor by remarking that “we have to keep in mind the advances in technology”, to which senior advocate N. Hariharan submitted that in that case “we can address the court from Kerala, why come here [to the court room]”.