A Protest FIR Against Student Rajesh Achaliya could not survive, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has held, because no public servant ever filed the written complaint that a prohibitory-order breach requires before a court can take cognizance.
Indore: A student booked for joining a protest outside a police station in Barwani district has had the FIR, the charge-sheet and the trial court’s cognizance order against him quashed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore, which ruled that the police could not act as their own complainant for an offence of disobeying a prohibitory order [Rajesh Achaliya v. The State of Madhya Pradesh].
Allowing the petition on November 2, 2026, Justice Pavan Kumar Dwivedi held that the bar in Section 215 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which corresponds to Section 195 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, had not been met, as no written complaint was ever filed by the District Magistrate or any other public servant.
A record the order begins with
The order opens by noting that the petitioner scored distinction in four of five subjects in his Class 12 examination, has cleared a Diploma in Elementary Education and passed a primary school teacher selection test.
“Such a bright student should not be unnecessarily dragged in criminal proceedings spoiling his entire career only for a trivial reason that he accompanied six persons who were agitating against the registration of FIR against some of the members of the tribal community.”
No written complaint, no cognizance
Justice Dwivedi found a complete absence of any written complaint by a public servant. Applying the Supreme Court’s ruling in Devendra Kumar, the Court held that the alleged acts of the seven persons formed one and the same transaction, so the two offences could not be split to escape the statutory bar.
“In view of the above authoritative pronouncement of the Hon’ble Apex Court, it is crystal clear that for taking cognizance of an offence under Section 223 of BNS requirement of Section 215 of BNSS has to be fulfilled. In the present case, the concerned public officer did not submit any such complaint. As such, the trial Court could not have taken cognizance of the matter and as the two offences cannot be split up into two separate transactions, the cognizance under Section 126(2) of BNS could also not have been taken by the trial Court in absence of compliance with Section 215 of BNSS.”
The Court also pointed to what it called a very significant fact: the spot map in the Crime Detail Form prepared by the investigating officer on July 8, 2024 showed the seven persons gathered at some distance from the police station building.
“As such, even by looking at the spot map prepared by the I.O., no offence under Section 126 of BNS is made out.”
How the case began
On June 30, 2024, an FIR was registered against some members of the tribal community in Barwani. Members of Jay Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS) then approached the Station House Officer of Police Station Palsud on July 6, 2024, seeking cancellation of that FIR.
The police registered a fresh case, Crime No. 198/2024, alleging that seven JAYS members, including Achaliya, gathered near the police station with banners and raised slogans without permission from the SDO, Rajpur. The FIR said this violated Clause 2.2 of the District Magistrate’s order of June 7, 2024 under Section 144 CrPC, an offence under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which corresponds to Section 188 IPC. Section 126(2) BNS (wrongful restraint) was added in the final report, and the trial court took cognizance against all seven on December 16, 2024 in RCT No. 817/2024.
What each side argued
Achaliya argued that Section 215 BNSS bars any court from taking cognizance of offences under Sections 206 to 223 BNS without a written complaint from the public servant concerned. He said the wrongful-restraint charge arose from the same transaction and could not be separated, that its ingredients were absent, and that he had been implicated only because he was a JAYS member who joined the protest. He relied on C. Munyapan v. State of Tamil Nadu and Devendra Kumar v. State (NCT of Delhi).
The State countered that the objection had never been raised before the trial court, which had recorded on October 13, 2025 that there was enough material to frame charges, and that a final report is not an encyclopaedia since the prosecution would prove its case at trial.
What was quashed
Holding the cognizance order not sustainable in the eyes of law, the Court quashed the order of December 16, 2024 in RCT No. 817/2024, the FIR in Crime No. 198/2024 at Police Station Palsud, District Barwani, and the resultant charge-sheet. The petition was filed by Achaliya alone, and the order deals only with his case.
Why the order matters
Section 215 BNSS, like Section 195 CrPC before it, is a safeguard against frivolous prosecutions for disobeying official orders. It allows a court to take cognizance of such offences only on a written complaint by the public servant whose order was disobeyed. The police may investigate, but once investigation ends the embargo applies, and an SHO’s FIR cannot stand in for the complaint the law requires.
The ruling also applies the Supreme Court’s principle that closely connected offences arising from the same transaction cannot be split up to get around that bar. Adding a wrongful-restraint charge to a prohibitory-order case does not cure the missing complaint. For protesters booked under Section 144 orders, the order is a reminder that procedure is not a technicality but a condition for prosecution.
Case Title: Rajesh Achaliya v. The State of Madhya Pradesh [MCRC No. 18484 of 2026]
Neutral Citation: 2026:MPHC-IND:30816
Bench: Justice Pavan Kumar Dwivedi, Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore
Heard On: August 13, 2026
Date of Order: November 2, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Parv Birla for the petitioner; Government Advocate Bhaskar Agrawal for the State