Case: Tushar @ Nandi @ Anand v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors.
Court: High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur
Bench: Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf
Date: 13 November 2025
Neutral Citation: 2025: MPHC-JBP:55808
In a significant judgment safeguarding citizens’ fundamental rights, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed an externment order passed by the District Magistrate, Betul, after finding that the action was taken mechanically and without sufficient legal basis. The Court emphasized that externment orders, which severely restrict personal liberty and freedom of movement under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution, cannot be issued casually or on stale, trivial, or irrelevant material. The Bench held that all statutory ingredients under the Madhya Pradesh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990 must be strictly satisfied before an individual can be pushed out of his district.
The Superintendent of Police, Betul, had forwarded a recommendation on 22 March 2024 seeking the externment of the appellant under the MP Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990, on the ground that as many as 12 criminal cases were registered in the past. Acting on this recommendation, the District Magistrate issued a show-cause notice and eventually passed an externment order on 21 November 2024. The order compelled the appellant to remain outside Betul and four adjoining districts for one year. The Divisional Commissioner rejected the appellant’s statutory appeal, and a writ petition challenging this decision was dismissed by a Single Judge. The appellant therefore approached the Division Bench through an intra-court appeal.
Appellant’s Contentions
The appellant argued that the externment proceedings were initiated without application of mind. He submitted that several cases relied on by the authorities had already ended in acquittal, while many others were trivial, involving minor offences such as sections 294, 323 and 506 of the IPC or the Gambling Act. No recent or serious offence existed to justify such a drastic administrative measure. A striking aspect highlighted before the Court was that the Superintendent of Police’s own recommendation, in its concluding paragraph, sought externment action against an entirely different individual—one Golu s/o Prabhakar Solanki—and yet the District Magistrate proceeded to extern the present appellant. This itself, according to the appellant, showed that both the SP and the DM had acted in a mechanical manner.
It was further argued that there was no real apprehension of danger to public peace or property, which is a mandatory prerequisite under Section 5 of the Act. The fact that the recommendation was made in March 2024 but the externment order was passed only eight months later, in November 2024, demonstrated that there was no urgency or live threat. During this long interval, the appellant was not involved in any fresh criminal activity, undermining the very foundation of the action. The appellant also contended that the State had failed to produce any material showing that witnesses were unwilling to testify due to fear—another mandatory statutory requirement.
State’s Stand
The State defended the externment by submitting that the appellant had a history of twelve criminal cases, and that the authorities were justified in exercising preventive jurisdiction to ensure maintenance of law and order. The Government Advocate argued that the show-cause notice was duly issued, witness statements were recorded, and the appellant was granted sufficient opportunity to contest the case. According to the State, procedural compliance was complete, and therefore the externment deserved to be upheld.
Court’s Analysis
The High Court began by analysing Section 5 of the MP Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, which lays down strict conditions for externment. The provision authorises the District Magistrate to remove a person from a district only when there are reasonable grounds to believe that his activities are causing or are likely to cause alarm, danger or harm to persons or property, or when he is engaged or is about to engage in offences involving force, violence or other serious crimes, combined with a situation where witnesses are unwilling to depose due to fear. The Bench emphasised that these conditions must not only be alleged but must be clearly established by proximate, specific, and credible material.
Applying these principles, the Court found that the District Magistrate had passed the order without recording any incident of recent danger to public peace or property. The authority had relied almost entirely on stale and inconsequential cases. Except for two offences registered in 2016 and 2021, no other case suggested the commission of a heinous offence. The solitary case registered in 2024 involved only minor allegations under sections 294, 323, 506 and 34 of the IPC and could not justify the extreme measure of externment. Further, other cases cited by the State related only to gambling offences and were not serious enough to meet statutory thresholds.
The Court further noted that the witnesses examined by the State during the inquiry did not support the allegations and did not make any statement indicating fear or unwillingness to testify. The absence of this crucial element made the externment order fundamentally defective. The Bench also took serious note of the fact that the Superintendent of Police’s recommendation had mistakenly named a different individual as the proposed externee, yet the District Magistrate proceeded against the appellant without rectifying this glaring error. This clearly indicated non-application of mind at the initial as well as final stages.
Another factor that weighed heavily with the Court was the unexplained eight-month delay between the SP’s recommendation and the DM’s order. The Court observed that such a long delay belied any claim of urgency or imminent threat, which is the cornerstone of preventive action. The long period of inactivity, during which the appellant did not indulge in any criminal conduct, demonstrated that the conditions necessary under Section 5 had not been satisfied.
The Division Bench also clarified that the Single Judge had erred in holding that Section 10 of the Act barred judicial review. The Court held that externment orders are unquestionably subject to scrutiny under Article 226 of the Constitution, as they impinge upon fundamental rights. Therefore, the High Court retains the power to examine legality, propriety and reasonableness of such orders.
Reliance on Precedents
The Court relied extensively on the Division Bench judgment in Ashok Kumar Patel v. State of M.P. (2009), which held that externment orders severely restrict fundamental freedoms and require strict compliance with statutory conditions. The Court reiterated that the District Magistrate cannot mechanically reproduce the language of the statute without demonstrating actual, proximate material establishing fear among witnesses or threat to public safety. These principles were held squarely applicable to the present case.
Conclusion and Final Order
After examining the entire material, the Court concluded that the externment order lacked factual foundation and was passed without proper application of mind. The statutory conditions under Section 5 were not satisfied, and the material relied upon was either stale, trivial or unrelated. The Court held that such a drastic measure, which curtails personal liberty and freedom of movement, cannot be justified on the basis of vague allegations or mechanical administrative action.
Accordingly, the High Court set aside the District Magistrate’s order dated 21 November 2024, the Divisional Commissioner’s appellate order dated 18 February 2025, and the Single Judge’s judgment dated 02 April 2025. The Court declared that the appellant was free to enter Betul and the adjoining districts and allowed the appeal with no order as to costs.
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