New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the response of Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on an appeal filed by the Chandigarh administration for reviving criminal proceedings against him in a 2020 violent protest case.
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Issuing notice to Mann and others who are named as accused in the case, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “We will issue notice. This requires examining.”
The Chandigarh administration had challenged the November 29, 2025 order of the Punjab and Haryana high court exonerating Mann and others as it observed that the charges of unlawful assembly and rioting was not made out against them.
Additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju appearing for the UT administration told the court that the high court erred in holding that the mob of protestors cannot be held to be “unlawful assembly” as there were no prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in place.
The high court quashed the criminal case registered against Mann and others in January 2020 for protesting outside the then CM’s house against an increase in power tariff and in the process pushing and injuring the police party that prevented the protestors, mostly belonging to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The other accused included state ministers Aman Arora, Harpal Singh Cheema among other AAP leaders.
The high court allowed the plea filed by Mann and other accused on the ground that the charges were not serious and the injuries sustained by police were not of a grievous nature. Approximately 750–800 party workers had gathered on the date of the incident to stage their protest in support of the same cause.
In coming to this conclusion, the HC said, “There was no reason for the police to stop the protestors from marching ahead towards the Chief Minister’s residence, as admittedly prohibitory order under section 144 CrPC had not been issued. While the police registered an offence based on stone pelting by protestors, the HC noted that nobody was identified for allegedly pelting stones on the police and neither was Mann accused of instigating them to do so.
The order of the high court further held, “Unlawful assembly is the sine qua non for the offences under sections 146 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (offences of violence committed by member of an unlawful assembly) In the instant petitions it is not the respondent’s case that the assembly of protesters which used the force was unlawful, as the prohibitory orders under Section 144 had not been issued.”
ASG Raju said, “This kind of a finding that promulgation of section 144 order is essential to declare an unlawful assembly is unheard of. If this is the case, then any offence committed during such a protest cannot be punished.”
He stated that the facts are undisputed that there was a violent protest and the protestors indulged in violence causing injuries to policemen.
The high court, instead, blamed the police, stating that the immediate trigger for the mob to turn violent appeared to be the shooting of water cannons on them. Also, the injuries suffered by the police personnel were due to shoving and jostling by the mob, which could not be specifically attributed to the accused, it had stated.
