The former Delhi Mayor alleged that a large contingent of Ghaziabad police entered his Delhi residence without a warrant while searching for a journalist. Uttar Pradesh said its officers rang the bell, were told he was not there, and left without entering. The Supreme Court declined to decide between the two accounts and sent the petitioner to the statutory route.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has declined to entertain a writ petition under Article 32 filed by former Delhi Mayor Farhad Suri seeking registration of an FIR against Ghaziabad police officials over an alleged raid at his Delhi residence in search of journalist Abhishek Upadhyay, holding that the relief can be pursued before the jurisdictional police under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 [Farhad Suri v. State of Uttar Pradesh].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana disposed of the petition, granting the petitioner liberty to avail the statutory remedies. It also declined the alternative prayer seeking guidelines on inter-state police raids. The Court recorded no finding on whether the alleged raid took place or was unlawful.
The petitioner’s case
The petition contended that on the intervening night of August 22 and 23, Ghaziabad police entered the petitioner’s Delhi residence in search of the journalist without any warrant.
Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate Anoop Awasthi submitted that a large contingent of police officers arrived in about fifteen vehicles, and that the General Diary entry relied upon by the State had been made after the raid rather than before it. He also invoked Article 142, seeking a framework of guidelines to govern police operations conducted by one State within the territory of another.
The State’s version
The Additional Advocate General for Uttar Pradesh opposed the petition on both maintainability and merits, arguing that Article 32 cannot be invoked directly to seek an FIR without first exhausting the statutory remedies.
On the facts, the State denied that any search had taken place at all. Its counsel submitted that the police were attempting to arrest a person, that there was a proper General Diary entry, and that Delhi police officers had simply rung the bell to find out whether the journalist was residing there. On being told he was not, the officers left without entering the house. The State also relied on the provision of the BNSS permitting search of a place entered by a person sought to be arrested, and pointed out that whatever occurred had taken place before the Supreme Court granted the journalist interim protection.
Urging the Court not to entertain the petition, the law officer submitted that the petitioner also had a duty to allow the police to do their job, and described him as being hyper-sensitive.
What the Court said
The Bench did not enter the factual dispute. On the principal prayer it held that the relief sought was available through the ordinary statutory machinery:
“The relief regarding direction to register FIR against police authorities of UP can very well be addressed if the petitioner approaches jurisdictional police station under S.175 BNSS. We have no reason to doubt that competent police will strictly act in accordance with law.”
On the second prayer, the Bench stated plainly that it was not going to entertain a request for guidelines on inter-state police raids. The petition was disposed of with liberty to pursue the remedies under the BNSS.
The wider proceedings
The petition arises out of a separate matter already before the same Bench. The journalist at the centre of it has reported on alleged irregularities in the handling of donations to the Ram temple at Ayodhya, a subject on which the Supreme Court is separately monitoring an SIT investigation.
He is facing an FIR registered at the Indirapuram police station in Ghaziabad in August 2026 arising from an alleged road-rage incident. His case, as set out in his own petition, is that the complaint is retaliatory and connected to his reporting, and that provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were invoked to make the case harder to answer. The State has not accepted that characterisation.
On August 25, the Bench granted him interim protection from coercive action, extending the protection to any further FIR that might be registered against him, and directed that a copy of the FIR be supplied to him. Notice was issued and the matter remains pending. Nothing has been decided on whether the FIR against him is sustainable.
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Why it matters
The order is procedural, and that is the point of interest. A petitioner seeking an FIR against police officers faces an obvious practical difficulty: the complaint has to be made to the police, and the police are the proposed accused. Article 32 offers a way around that, and the Court has declined to open it at the first instance.
The statutory route the Court pointed to is not, however, a dead end. Information disclosing a cognizable offence must be registered, a proposition settled by the Constitution Bench in Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh. If the police decline, the informant may move the Superintendent of Police and then the Magistrate, who may direct an investigation. The BNSS also introduced a provision addressed specifically to complaints against public servants arising from acts done in the discharge of official duties, under which a Magistrate may direct investigation only after obtaining a report from the officer’s superior and considering the public servant’s own assertions. That safeguard cuts both ways, giving the officers a hearing while also creating a documented route that did not exist in the same form under the earlier Code.
The refusal of the second prayer is the more consequential part in the longer run. Police operations conducted by one State inside another are governed by scattered provisions rather than a single code, and disputes about them tend to be resolved case by case, often after the event. The petitioner asked the Court to fill that gap under Article 142. The Bench declined without elaboration, which leaves the question where it was, and leaves the answer to be worked out in individual proceedings.
What should not be read into the order is any view on the underlying facts. The two accounts of what happened that night are irreconcilable, one describing fifteen vehicles and a warrantless entry, the other a doorbell and a departure. The Court decided only that the forum for testing them is not Article 32 at the threshold.
Case Title: Farhad Suri v. State of Uttar Pradesh [W.P.(Crl.) No. 359 of 2026]
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana, Supreme Court of India
Date of Order: September 15, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Anoop Awasthi for the petitioner. The Additional Advocate General for the State of Uttar Pradesh.
Status: Petition disposed of with liberty to avail statutory remedies. No finding recorded on the allegations. The related petition by the journalist remains pending.