Section 175(3) of the BNSS: Some reliefs
By Gaurav Cyclewala
At 3pm on 23.10.2026 I quickly rushed to Courtroom# 21 of the beautiful Patiala House Court, to request the Magistrate (JMFC-01) to provide me a Dasti Order as I was almost sure that approaching the Delhi High Court was going to be inevitable to get relief, and Certified Copy of the Order would be required to challenge it.
After all, the interim relief that I was asking on the very first hearing of the application for Court-monitored Investigation (filed under S. 175(3) of BNSS) was, in a way, unprecedented. The usual practice of most Magistrates is to give 7 to 10 days to the police to file a status report. But a delay of 10 days in tracing mobile phones, or preserving CCTV footage of a crime, would have completely killed the hopes of ever recovering the phones, or getting justice.
But at 4:30pm, when the freshly printed and stamped order came into my hands, all my apprehensions were put to rest. The Magistrate had directed the police to preserve the CCTV footage that we have asked for, and also sought a report regarding the steps taken for tracing the mobile phone, and whether the mobile phone has been put on tracking.
Demonstrating a deep understanding of powers and limitations of S.175(3) BNSS, the Magistrate had managed to provide prompt and meaningful relief to a 19-year-old boy, and set a powerful precedent for other pro-rights judges who are inclined to give relief to people getting detained by Delhi Police for merely exercising their right to free speech, and right to protest peacefully.
Since the beginning of protests in Delhi against SIR (Special Intensive Revision) and CEC (Chief Election Commissioner) Gyanesh Kumar, in early October, entire Central Delhi has been converted into a fortress and people – especially 20-30 years old – are recklessly detained and mercilessly beaten. But this time – learning from its mistakes in handling the protest at Jantar-Mantar in July, 2026 – the Delhi Police is beating the detainees in dark detention-vans away from the media-lens, and only after snatching away their mobile phones.
Around 56 young men were similarly detained on a Sunday afternoon (11.10.2026) from Connaught Place (CP). Many of them were brutally beaten by officers without name-tags, and their phones were snatched away. They were driven ~40KM away in a detention-van to Pandwala Khurd – a village in South-West Delhi, and kept in detention at its Community Centre. When, eventually, they were released late at night, their phones were not returned.
Around 25 young boys/ men refused to accept this grave injustice, and filed a police complaint the same night. This Complaint eventually led to the registration of an FIR on 16.10.2026 at Police Station CP.
But the Delhi Police acted too smart; completely discarded all the serious offences committed by the Police officers that day mentioned in the Complaint, and reduced it into a petty case of mobile theft! Without a court-monitored investigation there was absolutely no hope of getting the phones, let alone justice.
While many men, who were detained that night at Pandwala Khurd, lost their hopes of getting their phones back or see the cops who brutally beat them ever pay for their crimes, but one 19-year-old boy did not. The Application under S.175(3) BNSS titled “Pankaj Sahu v. State” was filed on 22.10.2026 at Patial House Court and heard the next day which has now given us a gem of an Order dated 23.10.2026.
Thousands of people have been illegally detained by the Delhi Police in the past few weeks, and many of them have sustained grave injuries, and/or got their phones snatched by the Police. I sincerely hope that some of these people seek urgent court intervention to preserve the CCTV footage of the spot where they were assaulted, and track their phones. And it would be a matter of great honour, if the Order dated 23.10.2026, wherein I played a small part, comes handy to them.