No Fundamental Right to a Specific Procession Route: Bombay HC Nagpur Bench Dismisses Kavad Yatra Petition

The Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench upheld police refusal of a proposed Kavad Yatra route, holding that no fundamental right entitles an organiser to insist on a particular road for a religious procession.

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court at Nagpur, comprising Justice Anil S. Kilor and Justice Rajnish R. Vyas, dismissed a writ petition on 14 August 2026 challenging the refusal of a particular route for a Kavad Yatra planned for 16 August 2026. The petitioner, Deepak Nechwani, organiser of Bharat Mata Sewa Sangathan, Nagpur, had applied to take out a 3.5-kilometre procession carrying consecrated water from Mahadeo Ghat for a Jalabhishek ritual. The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone No. 3, Nagpur City, declined the proposed route and offered an alternate one. The bench held that the right to practise religion under Article 25 of the Constitution does not carry with it an entitlement to use any specific road, and found the police decision fully justified given documented antecedents of communal tension in the locality.

The Dispute Before the Court

Deepak Nechwani, in his personal capacity as organiser of Bharat Mata Sewa Sangathan, applied for permission to take out the Kavad Yatra on 16 August 2026 at 11.00 a.m. The proposed route ran from Kalyaneshwar Temple, Badkas Chowk, through Chitnis Park, Agrasen Chowk, Uday Mitra Hanuman Temple, Gitanjali Chowk, Arya Samaj Temple, Bhagwaghar Chowk, Mominpura Chowk, and Ansar Nagar, ending at Ganesh Shiv Temple within the limits of Police Station Tahsil.

The Senior Police Inspector, Police Station Tahsil, submitted an adverse report on 31 July 2026. The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone No. 3, issued a communication on 1 August 2026, not refusing the procession outright, but declining to permit it on the proposed route and directing the organiser to use an alternate route.

Nechwani challenged both the report dated 31 July 2026 and the order dated 1 August 2026 by filing Writ Petition No. 6151 of 2026. The matter was first listed on 11 August 2026. The State filed its reply on 13 August 2026, and the bench heard the matter finally on 14 August 2026 by consent.

Police Objections and the Alternate Route Offer

The impugned communication, reproduced in full by the bench, set out fourteen separate objections raised by the city police. Eight mosques, one dargah, and what the report described as a “highly vulnerable to religious evils” corridor lay along the petitioner's proposed route. The report also noted that this was the first time the organiser had sought permission for such a procession along this path — no prior tradition existed for taking the Kavad Yatra through the area.

Two specific prior incidents weighed on the police assessment. On 22 January 2024, persons carrying saffron flags in the Mominpura area were attacked, leading to the registration of Crime No. 48/2024 under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 323, 324, and 341 of the IPC. On 17 March 2025, burning of a symbolic grave by members of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Statue, Mahal, triggered communal riots across Police Stations Kotwali, Ganeshpeth, and Tahsil.

Beyond communal antecedents, the police flagged serious operational gaps in the application itself. There was no traffic management plan, no specification of sound equipment to be used, no estimated headcount of participants, no list of volunteers with names and contact numbers, no crowd-control protocol, and no identification of coordinators for road management. The police concluded that without this information, safe and planned conduct of the procession on the proposed route could not be ensured.

Despite these objections, the Deputy Commissioner did not reject the Kavad Yatra. Instead, the organiser was called to the police station, an alternate route including the ancient “D-grade” Jagruteshwar Shiva Mandir and Jagannath Temple was suggested, and the Kavad Yatra was permitted on that alternate route from 11.00 a.m. on 16 August 2026. The organiser refused the alternate route and filed the writ petition.

The Legal Issue: Article 25 and Route-Specific Claims

The petitioner's counsel argued that India being a secular country, any religious procession can pass through any road without restriction. He contended that the presence of mosques or other places of worship along a route cannot by itself justify denial of permission. He relied on Himat Lal K. Shah v. Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, (1973) 1 SCC 227, and S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram, (1989) 2 SCC 574, for the proposition that fundamental rights to assemble and practise religion are protected. He also cited the Madras High Court's judgment in Ramasamy Udayar v. District Collector, 2021 SCC OnLine Mad 1779.

The State, through Government Pleader and Senior Advocate D.V. Chauhan, drew a sharp distinction: the petitioner was not prohibited from conducting the Kavad Yatra at all; only the specific route he proposed was declined. He relied on State of Karnataka v. Dr. Praveen Bhai Thogadia, (2004) 4 SCC 684, for the principle that courts should not ordinarily interfere with law-and-order decisions of administrative authorities, and on a coordinate bench judgment in Writ Petition No. 6170 of 2022, Bharat Mukti Morcha and Anr. v. State of Maharashtra and Others, decided 4 October 2022, for the distinction between “law and order” and “public order”. He also placed before the court a Division Bench judgment of the Allahabad High Court in PIL No. 1495 of 2026, Sharif Ahmad and Others v. State of U.P. and Others, dated 24 June 2026, which had addressed an analogous dispute about a new procession route for a Muharram procession.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Kilor, writing for the bench, opened with a factual correction of the petition's premise. The order impugned was not a refusal to allow the Kavad Yatra. Permission was granted, subject only to the use of an alternate route. Neither the right to practise religion nor the right to take out a procession had been prohibited. What was refused was use of the particular route the organiser had proposed.

The bench then addressed the petitioner's failure to supply basic operational information even after the communication dated 1 August 2026 had explicitly listed the deficiencies. When directly asked whether the organiser had subsequently provided the missing details — a traffic management plan, sound equipment list, volunteer roster, crowd-control arrangement — counsel for the petitioner said the information was not supplied because it had not been specifically demanded. The bench found this answer “surprising.” It held that where adverse police reports exist and a particular route is insisted upon, the organiser is duty-bound to satisfy the police on every material aspect.

The bench examined photographs of Mahadeo Temple, the site for the Jalabhishek ritual. Open space existed on only three sides of the temple, each too narrow to accommodate even 50 to 60 persons. The access road to the temple was narrow. In case of a large crowd, the court found every possibility of an untoward incident. Additionally, the temple is private property and does not belong to any trust or government institution. The police had already received complaints from the temple's owner. On this ground alone, the bench held, the petitioner could not compel any private person to be part of the Kavad Yatra.

Drawing on State of Karnataka v. Dr. Praveen Bhai Thogadia, the bench reiterated that courts should not normally interfere with law-and-order matters which lie primarily in the domain of administrative authorities. Past conduct and antecedents of a group may furnish sufficient material for action on a reasonable expectation of possible disturbance. The bench applied this principle to the two documented incidents from 2024 and 2025 in the same locality.

The bench adopted the reasoning of the Allahabad High Court in Sharif Ahmad: “the exercise of a right to practice one's religion is one thing and to practice it in a particular way is different.” Earmarking routes for processions involving large numbers of people is a law-and-order matter for which civil and police administration bear responsibility. There is no fundamental right to use a particular road for the performance of religious rites.

From the coordinate bench's judgment in Bharat Mukti Morcha, the bench adopted the proposition that whenever there is an apprehension of danger to “greater community interest” or “interest of the collective or social order,” the situation threatens public order and warrants temporary abridgement of the right to take out a procession.

The petitioner's reliance on Himat Lal K. Shah and S. Rangarajan was rejected as misconceived. Neither judgment was applicable, the bench held, because in those cases an absolute prohibition on religion or assembly was at issue. Here, no such prohibition existed. The alternate route was itself a permission. The Madras High Court's judgment in Ramasamy Udayar was noted as having only persuasive value and inapplicable on the facts.

Outcome

The Division Bench dismissed Writ Petition No. 6151 of 2026 on 14 August 2026. Rule, made returnable forthwith, stands discharged. The bench recorded no illegality in the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone No. 3's decision to decline the proposed route and to offer an alternate route, given the antecedents of communal disturbance in the locality and the organiser's failure to provide basic safety and logistics information.