5 Key Takeaways
- The Bombay High Court ruled that chanting slogans like 'BJP murdabad' during a protest is protected political speech and not grounds for externment.
- Externment orders cannot be used to silence peaceful dissent or punish inconvenient political criticism.
- Police officers are authorities answerable to the public, not functionaries of ruling political ministers.
- The judgment reaffirms the fundamental right to peaceful protest and dissent in a democracy.
- The ruling sets a strong precedent against misuse of preventive laws like externment to muzzle opposition voices.
"Police Are Answerable to the Public, Not Functionaries of Ministers" — Bombay High Court Quashes Externment Over Anti-BJP Slogans
In a landmark ruling on July 2, 2026, the Bombay High Court declared that chanting slogans like "BJP murdabad" or "Amit Shah murdabad" during a protest is no ground to expel a citizen from their locality. The judgment powerfully reasserts that peaceful political criticism lies at the heart of a democratic society.
The right to dissent just received a powerful judicial shield in Maharashtra. In a significant ruling delivered on July 2, 2026, the Bombay High Court declared that chanting slogans such as "BJP murdabad" or "Amit Shah murdabad" during a protest is no ground to expel a citizen from their locality. The court quashed an externment order passed against Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary, the Maharashtra State general secretary of the Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), and forcefully reasserted that peaceful political criticism lies at the heart of a democratic society.
For a layperson, the term "externment" might sound bureaucratic, but its impact is deeply personal. An externment order is an official direction that bans an individual from entering or staying in a specified area—often an entire district—for a certain period. In Maharashtra, such orders are typically issued under the Maharashtra Police Act. They are meant to be a preventive tool, used when a person's movements are likely to cause alarm, danger, or harm to the public, or when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is engaged in criminal activities. In practice, however, externment has often been criticised as a convenient shortcut for authorities to sideline voices of opposition without having to actually prove any crime in a court of law.
What is an Externment Order? An official direction banning an individual from entering or staying in a specified area—often an entire district—for a certain period. Issued under the Maharashtra Police Act as a preventive tool, it has faced criticism for being used to sideline opposition voices without proving any crime in court.
The case that unravelled this misuse involved a seasoned political activist. Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary is not a fringe figure; he serves as the state general secretary of the SDPI, a registered political party. He found himself at the receiving end of an externment order that sought to banish him from his area. The police action appeared to be triggered, at least in part, by his participation in a protest where slogans like "BJP murdabad" (down with the BJP) and "Amit Shah murdabad" (down with Amit Shah) were raised. Authorities treated these slogans as a threat to public order, sufficient to uproot a man from his home and community.
Chaudhary challenged the externment order before the Bombay High Court, filing a petition that would test the boundaries of lawful dissent. The case, titled Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary v. State of Maharashtra & Ors., came up before a bench led by Justice Madhav Jamdar. The courtroom saw a crisp, no-nonsense defence of fundamental rights. Justice Jamdar held that citizens have an unequivocal entitlement to protest against decisions of the government. Raising slogans—however loud, sharp, or critical—against a political party or its leaders does not automatically translate into a law-and-order problem that requires expulsion.
The court's reasoning cut straight to the constitutional core. India's democracy guarantees the right to assemble peacefully and the right to express oneself freely. These rights are not luxuries that the state can switch off whenever it finds the language uncomfortable. Holding a banner or shouting "murdabad" is a time-honoured mode of showing disagreement. Unless such an act crosses over into incitement to violence, the machinery of the state cannot be deployed to vanish that protester from the scene. The judgment made it plain that slogans like "BJP murdabad" and "Amit Shah murdabad" fall squarely within the scope of political speech, not criminal intimidation.
"Police officers are authorities answerable to the public, and not functionaries of the ministers."
— Justice Madhav Jamdar, Bombay High Court (Oral Remark)
The judgment was accompanied by a stinging oral remark from Justice Jamdar that has since resonated far beyond the courtroom. The judge observed that police officers are authorities answerable to the public, and not functionaries of the ministers. This single sentence encapsulates a profound democratic principle. It serves as a reminder that the police force derives its power from the people and exists to serve the larger public interest, not to act as a personal enforcement squad for the political executive. When an externment order is passed on flimsy grounds simply because the slogans irk those in power, the police betray that public trust and reduce themselves to political instruments.
To fully appreciate the weight of this remark, one must understand the structural vulnerability of externment laws. The Maharashtra Police Act allows the state to extern a person if their presence in an area is deemed hazardous to the community. The terminology is broad and the procedural safeguards are minimal. A show-cause notice is issued, a hearing is conducted by a designated officer, and an order can be passed. The person targeted often has limited time and resources to marshal a defence. Though a judicial review is possible, as in Chaudhary's case, the initial order itself can do irreparable damage. It disrupts livelihoods, severs family ties, and brands an individual as a troublemaker, all before any guilt is established.
It is against this backdrop that the Bombay High Court's intervention becomes a landmark. By quashing Chaudhary's externment order, the court did not simply provide relief to one aggrieved citizen. It drew a bright line that the state cannot misuse the externment apparatus to sanitise the political landscape of inconvenient criticism. Slogans that express contempt for a ruling party or its leadership are, after all, a standard feature of electoral democracy. They are heard at rallies, on social media, and in everyday street-corner conversations. To single out one speaker and subject him to a territorial expulsion for the same words is arbitrary, unconstitutional, and entirely out of step with democratic life.
The facts of the case reveal no extraordinary circumstance that could justify such a drastic measure. Chaudhary was exercising his fundamental right to protest. The slogans, however colourful, did not call for violence, nor did they threaten any individual with physical harm. "Murdabad" is a loud, rhetorical cry of disapproval—a political curse, if you will—but not a criminal one. The police failed to present any evidence that this specific act precipitated a breakdown of public order or that Chaudhary had a history of violent behaviour that necessitated his removal. The externment order rested on an impermissible collapse between political displeasure and public danger.
"Slogans like 'BJP murdabad' and 'Amit Shah murdabad' fall squarely within the scope of political speech, not criminal intimidation. Citizens have an unequivocal entitlement to protest against decisions of the government."
— Bombay High Court, Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.
Justice Jamdar's ruling also reinforces a critical distinction that often gets lost in the heat of political battles: the difference between being answerable to the public and being subservient to a political dispensation. Police officers, as public officials, operate under the rule of law. They must be sensitive to the community's concerns, but that sensitivity cannot amount to a zero-tolerance policy for anything that embarrasses the government of the day. When an officer decides to extern someone for raising anti-government slogans, they effectively treat verbal dissent as a crime against the state. The judge's rebuke—that police are not functionaries of the ministers—serves to reorient the force's moral compass away from political loyalty and towards constitutional duty.
What does this judgment mean for the common citizen? It means that joining a protest and voicing displeasure against a political figure, even with harsh words, remains a protected activity. No one can be torn away from their home and neighbourhood merely because they took part in a rally and shouted "murdabad" against the ruling party. For civil liberties activists, the ruling is a shield they can invoke whenever externment is used to muzzle dissent. For the police, it is a clear signal that externment orders will be scrutinised rigorously by the courts, and that justifying them with nothing more than the content of a slogan will not survive judicial review.
The immediate consequence for Saeed Ahmad Abdul Wahid Chaudhary is that he is free. The externment order no longer hangs over his head, and he can continue his political work without the fear of being banished from his area. But the larger, structural implication is what observers will be watching closely. Will district magistrates and police commissioners across Maharashtra take heed, or will they continue to pass externment orders in the hope that the targeted individual lacks the resources to challenge them in the High Court? The judgment provides a powerful precedent, but precedents are only as effective as the awareness and assertiveness of those they protect.
The ruling also arrives in a wider national context where the use of preventive detention and externment laws against political opponents and activists is a recurring headline. From environmental protesters to students demanding examination reforms, the colonial-era toolkit of containment is often dusted off. By stating in unequivocal terms that slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party or Union Home Minister Amit Shah are not grounds for externment, the Bombay High Court has sent an unambiguous message to all such authorities: criticism of the government, even the ruling dispensation at the Centre, is not a security threat. It is the pulse of a functioning democracy.
In the days and weeks following the judgment, legal experts expect this ruling to be cited extensively in writ petitions challenging similar orders. The oral remarks about police accountability may not form part of the written judgment's binding ratio, but they will undoubtedly colour the judicial mindset in future proceedings. The statement that police officers are "authorities answerable to the public and not functionaries of the ministers" is a succinct formulation that can be quoted to remind law enforcement agencies of their institutional role. It strips away the pretence that suppressing political speech can ever be a legitimate police function.
It is also worth reflecting on what the slogans themselves represent. "BJP murdabad" and "Amit Shah murdabad" are not phrases of refined debate. They are angry, emotional, and direct. But democracy has always made space for such unvarnished expression. The ability to tell a powerful leader or party exactly what you think of them, in the language of the streets, is a safety valve. It channels discontent into words rather than letting it fester into something far more destructive. When the state attempts to criminalise this language, it risks convincing people that peaceful protest is futile and that the only way to be heard is through louder, more confrontational means.
The Bombay High Court's decision is a reaffirmation that the home of a citizen is their sanctuary, and that sanctuary cannot be taken away because of a political insult. The judgment does not grant a licence to threaten or intimidate; those acts remain punishable under separate provisions of the Indian Penal Code and other laws. What it does is draw a necessary fence around the externment law, ensuring that its drastic power is not used to exile the politically inconvenient. As the dust settles on this particular courtroom battle, the words of Justice Jamdar will linger: police are servants of the public, not of the ministers. That is a lesson no democratic society can afford to forget.
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