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“Today is supposed to be the last day of your custody, and there is absolutely nothing I want more right now than to see you both walk out free. Nothing else matters to me at this moment. I just want my brothers back,” Abhijit Dipke wrote in an open letter on Monday, October 19, 2026.

Today, October 21, marks a week since the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das were sent to Tihar Jail, for allegedly breaching the conditions of their bonds by trespassing into Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on October 13, 2026. A day before that, Jantar Mantar had been de-notified as a protest site. Das and Ranka were remanded to 5 days of judicial custody on October 14, extended by two days on October 19. The incident has raised questions of both procedure and principle.

The procedural question is whether preventive arrest and custody in our laws can survive without a known design to commit a cognisable offence, an inquiry or a reasoned rejection of sureties. But the question of principle is whether statutory provisions to prevent apprehended violence can be stretched to detain people for protests, and whether this has effectively equated the right to protest with a “breach of peace”.

In this article, we first examine what a peace bond means in law and the legal consequences of breaching its conditions. We chronologically trace the events of the present case, contrasting what has happened with what ought to have happened in law. 

What Happened? A Timeline

On October 10, 2026, Das, Ranka and Dipke were detained, from within their Air India flight, upon landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, ahead of a planned protest in the capital demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The Delhi Police stated that they had come for a protest without permission at Jantar Mantar.

On October 11, preventive proceedings began under Sections 126 and 170 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The trio executed bonds of Rs 50,000 each, with sureties, to keep the peace for a year. While he was in detention, Dipke’s grandmother passed away, and upon release, he returned to Maharashtra to be with his family.

On October 12, the Delhi Police officially de-notified Jantar Mantar, formerly a designated protest site. 

On October 13, Das and Ranka were arrested at Jantar Mantar, after allegedly climbing a locked gate, waving the national flag and shouting slogans against the CEC. The Delhi Police cited “inputs” that CJP workers “might cause a disturbance” and two FIRs.

On October 14, Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) Mahesh Kumar Meena issued notice under Section 130 BNSS, finding breach of the bonds (dated 11.10.26) “evident” from their conduct, social media posts and the complainant’s statement, and remanded Das and Ranka to judicial custody in Tihar Jail for five days “to maintain public peace and order,” with no “sound surety,” being produced.

On October 18, the SEM Meena mentioned that he received threats and was facing mental harassment. So, the hearing was delayed to Monday and held by another SEM, Ritu Raj. 

On October 19, at the end of the initial remand, fresh sureties were tendered and rejected, and SEM Raj extended custody by an additional two days, to October 21. 

On October 20, Das and Ranka moved the Delhi high court against the extension to their custody under Article 21 for noncompliance with Sections 135(3) and 140 BNSS.

On October 21, they withdrew the plea after the high court’s suggestion to wait till after a hearing before the SEM court.

What is the law on ‘breach of peace’?

Neither the Criminal Procedure Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) nor the new Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, (BNSS) defines a breach of the peace. The courts have described it “a violation of that quiet, peace, and security which is guaranteed by the law,” as the Bombay high court did in V K Rao v Chandappa Appa Devadiga, and have accepted that it can occur even in private, as the Allahabad high court held of an assault in Naziruddin v Emperor. It is a narrower concept than public order. In Ram Manohar Lohia v State of Bihar Justice M Hidayatullah described law and order, public order and the security of the state as three concentric circles and observed that “every breach of peace does not lead to public disorder.” 

The phrase matters because the preventive powers in the BNSS are intrinsically connected to it. Preventive powers are powers that the state has and does enforce in order to prevent a crime (à la Tom Cruise’s Minority Report).

Chapter IX of the BNSS, which replaces Chapter VIII of the CrPC, allows the state to act against offences against public tranquillity, but in return, lays down a fixed procedure. The Supreme Court upheld the old chapter in Madhu Limaye v Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Monghyr on exactly that basis, and in Rajender Singh Pathania v State (NCT of Delhi) it repeated that these powers serve preventive justice and are not of a........

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