“Being punished for the protest”: an FIR against job seekers outside the MLA Hostel is quashed in full

Justice Anuj Singh holds that a bare reading of the FIR discloses the ingredients of none of the eight offences invoked, that Section 332 of the Penal Code is not attracted where no petitioner is specifically accused of voluntarily causing hurt, and that the case falls within three of the Bhajan Lal categories.

The petitioners are candidates from the 2016 SLST recruitment round who have spent years protesting the way the School Service Commission conducted it. On 2 August 2023, while the Legislative Assembly was in session, a crowd describing itself as SLST job seekers gathered outside the MLA Hostel on Kyd Street, shouting slogans against the Government. A police officer's complaint said they blocked the main gate, confined the MLAs inside, turned violent and assaulted police. Eight sections of the Penal Code followed. On 9 October 2026 Justice Anuj Singh quashed the FIR and every proceeding arising from it, holding that it is “an unavoidable inference that the Petitioners are being punished for the protest”.

The complaint, and what it did not say

The petitioners' case is that they were aggrieved by the manner of recruitment adopted by the School Service Commission, and that they began a peaceful protest on 28 September 2021, wishing to express their grievances in front of the MLA Hostel against hunger, unemployment and what they described as illegal recruitment.

The complaint that produced the FIR was lodged by a police sergeant. It stated that on 2 August 2023, while the Legislative Assembly was in session and members were due to leave the MLA Hostel at 2, Kyd Street between about 10.00 and 10.30 in the morning, a mass of men and women describing themselves as SLST 2016 job seekers arrived shouting slogans against the Government. It alleged that they blocked the main gate and wrongfully prevented members of the Legislative Assembly from leaving, so that the MLAs were confined inside the hostel; that on being asked to refrain they became violent, misbehaved with the police and physically assaulted police personnel including the complainant; and that the complainant and others were injured.

On that complaint, Park Street Police Station Case No. 78 of 2023 was registered for offences under Sections 143, 145, 147, 149, 341, 342, 353 and 332 of the Indian Penal Code. Investigation was said to be pending. The petitioners came under Article 226 seeking a mandamus to strike their names off the case.

Section 332, and the absence of an accusation

The gravest of the eight sections is Section 332 — voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from discharging his duty. On that provision the judgment follows an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Bhagwant Mann v. U.T. Chandigarh, dated 29 November 2025, which observed that in the case of protests the offence under Section 332 would not be attracted if the petitioners are not specifically accused of voluntarily causing hurt. That order also noted that there were no allegations that the petitioners were carrying sticks or stones, and that the nature of the injuries suffered by the officials was not very intense, being “mere result of gappling and pushing”.

The same two features were present here. The FIR does not specifically accuse the petitioners of voluntarily causing hurt, and the injuries to the officials were superficial in nature. Section 332, the Court held, is therefore not attracted.

And the finding did not stop at that section. On a bare reading, the FIR “does not disclose the ingredients of any of the offences invoked”, and no prima facie case is made out against the petitioners. From that the Court drew the conclusion which gives the judgment its force: it is “an unavoidable inference that the Petitioners are being punished for the protest, making it a vexatious and frivolous proceeding”.

The case was accordingly placed within categories (1), (3) and (7) of the illustrations in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal — where the allegations in the FIR, taken at face value, do not make out the offence; where they disclose no cognizable offence at all; and where the proceeding is manifestly attended with mala fides or instituted maliciously with an ulterior motive. On the settled principle that where no offence is disclosed on a careful and constructive reading of the FIR as a whole the court may quash the proceedings to prevent further abuse of process, the Court held it was empowered to act.

Order

Park Street Police Station Case No. 78 of 2023 dated 2 August 2023, registered for the offences punishable under Sections 143, 145, 147, 149, 341, 342, 353 and 332 of the Penal Code, was quashed, as were all consequential proceedings arising from it — including the G.R. Case No. 875 of 2023 pending before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta.

A copy of the judgment was directed to be communicated forthwith to the criminal court concerned and to the Officer-in-Charge, Park Street Police Station. The writ petition was allowed with no order as to costs.

What is notable is the breadth of the relief. The petitioners had asked only that their names be struck off the case; the Court quashed the case itself, and the magistrate proceedings with it. Three years after the morning on Kyd Street, there is nothing left of the FIR.