New Delhi: Retired senior civil servant Ashish Joshi has moved the Delhi High Court through a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) under Article 226 of the Constitution, challenging the repeated extensions of the large-scale deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in Delhi for protest-related law and order duties, news agency ANI reported on Friday. The petition, filed through advocates Ambuj Dixit and Amrish Ranjan Pandey, seeks judicial scrutiny of the legal and administrative basis for the deployment, including its necessity, proportionality, duration and periodic review.
Source: ANI via DevDiscourse
The plea traces the deployment through the decisions of October 6, October 8, October 22 and October 29: 301 companies were initially approved, 273 companies were retained until October 31, 2026, and a further extension kept 270 companies in the capital until November 16, 2026, according to LiveLaw's report of the petition. Joshi has sought details of the sanctioned strength, the personnel actually mobilised to Delhi and reporting for duty, and how many were assigned specifically to protest-related duties, along with the criteria for reducing or withdrawing the forces.
Source: LiveLaw
Raising constitutional concerns under Articles 14, 19 and 21, particularly the right to peaceful democratic assembly, the petitioner has sought directions to the Centre and Delhi Police to place on record the original Ministry of Home Affairs orders, police requisitions, risk assessments and reconciled force-wise deployment figures, ANI reported. He has also sought an assessment of the deployment's impact on other operational responsibilities, including counter-insurgency operations, border security, election preparedness and disaster response.
Source: ANI via DevDiscourse
The PIL asks that any continuation or extension beyond November 16 be supported by written and reasoned orders recording the prevailing circumstances, necessity and geographical spread of the forces, with periodic reviews at intervals not exceeding 14 days, and that the Union Government frame and notify a written protocol within eight weeks for substantial or repeatedly extended CAPF deployments for protest-related duties, LiveLaw reported. It also seeks preservation of all deployment and extension orders, requisitions, strength returns, review notes and expenditure and incident records relating to the October 2026 deployment.
Source: LiveLaw
The petition additionally seeks a declaration that an order deploying CAPFs in aid of civil power cannot, by itself, be treated as blanket authority to disperse peaceful assemblies, detain individuals merely for participating in protests or use force — any coercive action, it states, must independently satisfy the applicable statutory and constitutional requirements, including Sections 148 to 151 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the tests of necessity and proportionality, according to ANI and LiveLaw. The central forces are assisting Delhi Police in the capital ahead of the INDIA bloc's planned November 1 rally at Ramlila Maidan, as PTI reported earlier. The court has yet to hear the plea.
Source: ANI via DevDiscourse