Case Name: Vijay Kumar Rajpoot Alias Vijju v. State of Chhattisgarh & Ors.
Appeal No:  CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 4083 OF 2026
Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 926
Date of Judgment: August 31, 2026.
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Dipankar Datta and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sheel Nagu.
Relevant Statutes and Provisions: Section 9 and Sections 5(a) and (b) of the Chhattisgarh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990; Sections 294, 295A, 298, 504 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC); and Section 3(1)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

(This judgement addresses the mandatory requirement to adhere to procedural safeguards and that a District Magistrate cannot restore an already-closed externment case, nor pass an externment order without giving the affected person notice and a hearing, as doing so violates natural justice and renders the order void).

In this judgement the Hon’ble Supreme Court has struck down an externment order that had banished a man from his home district under Chhattisgarh’s Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Adhiniyam’). The Court clarified that a District Magistrate cannot review or restore a matter already disposed of by him unless such power is expressly conferred by law. It was further held that failure to comply with the fundamental principles of natural justice, including affording due notice and a reasonable opportunity of hearing, renders the order void.

FACTS:

The Appellant has approached the Hon’ble Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition, assailing the externment order dated 04.11.2025 passed by Respondent No. 3, as well as the judgement dated 22.01.2026 passed by the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur. The genesis of the impugned externment order can be traced to the memorandum dated 03.04.2019 submitted by Respondent No. 4 to Respondent No. 3, recommending initiation of externment proceedings against the Appellant under Sections 5(a) and 5(b) of the Chhattisgarh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990. 

The externment order was premised upon the appellant’s alleged involvement in ten criminal cases registered between 2009 and 2019. Pursuant thereto, Respondent No. 3, by order dated 03.03.2019, initiated proceedings for the externment of the appellant. Subsequently, by order dated 06.10.2025, Respondent No. 3, Raigarh, closed the externment proceedings, recording that the appellant had been acquitted in the criminal cases relied upon by Respondent No. 2 in the memorandum. It was further recorded that no fresh police report had been submitted against the appellant after 2019 and that, in the circumstances, initiation of externment proceedings on the basis of criminal cases registered between 2009 and 2019 was not justified. Accordingly, Respondent No. 3 closed the proceedings and released the appellant with a warning to refrain from indulging in criminal activities in the future. 

The proceedings against the Appellant were initiated on the basis of two FIRs. The first alleged unauthorised development of a 2.13-acre colony at Boirdadar, Raigarh, invoking Sections 292 and 292-C(2) and (3) of the Chhattisgarh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956. The second FIR arose from an alleged social media video containing abusive remarks concerning Baba Guru Ghasidas, a revered figure of the Satnami community, and invoked various provisions of the BNS, 2023 (corresponding to provisions of the IPC, 1860), as well as Section 3(1)(v) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Pursuant to the said FIRs, the Appellant was arrested on the same day and lodged in District Jail, Raigarh.

ISSUES

1. Whether the externment order passed by the District Magistrate is legally sustainable and valid in law, and whether the High Court was justified in declining to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction to examine and set aside the said order.

CONTENTIONS OF THE APPELLANT:

• The Appellant contended that the manner in which the impugned externment order came to be passed constitutes a flagrant and manifest violation of the principles of natural justice. It was further submitted that the impugned order stands vitiated in law on account of a clear and substantive breach of the mandatory statutory safeguard embodied in Section 8 of the Adhiniyam, which expressly mandates the issuance of notice and affords the affected person a meaningful and effective opportunity of hearing before such an order is passed.
• He further submits that Respondent No. 3 had no statutory authority, whether express or implied, to suo motu review, recall, or reopen his own closure order, whereby the externment proceedings had been conclusively brought to an end. It is, therefore, contended that the impugned externment order, being ex facie vitiated not only by a flagrant breach of the principles of natural justice but also by a patent lack of jurisdiction, was wholly unsustainable in law. In such circumstances, the High Court could not have invoked the self-imposed restraint of relegating the Appellant to the alternative statutory remedy as a bar to the exercise of its writ jurisdiction, particularly where the impugned action was challenged on the ground of violation of natural justice and want of jurisdiction.

CONTENTIONS OF THE RESPONDENTS:

• The respondents contended that Section 9 of the Adhiniyam provides an efficacious statutory appellate remedy, which constitutes a substantive procedural safeguard intended to be availed of by an aggrieved person. It was therefore submitted that such an alternative remedy ought not to be ordinarily bypassed and that the exercise of writ jurisdiction in the face of an available statutory appeal would be unwarranted.
• The impugned externment order was neither a de novo action nor an impermissible review of the earlier closure order. Rather, it constituted a continuation of the proceedings already set in motion, necessitated by supervening circumstances, namely, the appellant’s breach of the earlier warning and his subsequent involvement in fresh criminal activities. Moreover, the appellant had already been afforded an effective opportunity of hearing in the proceedings culminating in the closure order. In these circumstances, no separate or fresh opportunity of hearing was legally mandated prior to the issuance of the impugned externment order.
• The registration of Crime No. 483/2025, concerning the appellant’s alleged abusive and derogatory remarks against a revered Satnami saint, resulted in widespread public outrage and had the potential to seriously and immediately disturb public order and social harmony. In view of the prevailing circumstances and the imminent threat to public peace, Respondent No. 3 was justified in taking preventive action by passing the impugned externment order.

JUDGMENT AND ANALYSIS

• Principles of Natural Justice

The Supreme Court held that the mandatory requirement of natural justice could not be diluted merely because the proceeding being acted upon was a revival of one earlier closed. Before an externment order could be passed under Section 5 pursuant to reopening the closed case, the District Magistrate was bound to put the appellant to notice of the material allegations and afford him a meaningful opportunity of hearing, as contemplated by Section 8(1) to (3) of the Adhiniyam. In support of the consequence of non-compliance, the Court relied on Nawabkhan Abbaskhan v. State of Gujarat (1974), where, in the context of an analogous externment provision under the Bombay Police Act, 1951, Krishna Iyer, J., had held that an order passed by an authority in breach of a constitutionally rooted duty to hear is void ab initio and not merely an irregularity curable on appeal or review. Applying this reasoning, the Court concluded that the impugned externment order, having been passed without notice or hearing to the appellant while he was in judicial custody, stood vitiated at the threshold.

• Exception to the Rule of Hearing

Section 8(4) empowers the District Magistrate to require the person proposed to be externed to furnish a bond, with or without sureties, to secure his attendance during the inquiry, while Section 8(5) permits the inquiry to proceed ex parte only where such person either fails to furnish the bond so demanded or, having furnished it, fails to appear before the District Magistrate. Outside these two specific contingencies, the statutory scheme confers no authority on the District Magistrate to dispense with notice or hearing. Since neither contingency was shown to exist on the facts of this case, the Court held there was no statutory basis available to the third respondent for proceeding ex parte.

• Lack of Jurisdiction

The Court reaffirmed the settled administrative-law principle that an authority possesses no inherent power to review, recall, or reconsider its own prior order unless such power is expressly conferred by the statute or arises by necessary implication. No provision of the Adhiniyam was shown to confer any such power of review on the District Magistrate, and the Court accordingly held that the third respondent, in reopening the case that had earlier been closed by his own order, had exercised a jurisdiction not vested in him by law, rendering the reopening itself and the externment order that followed from it without jurisdiction.

• Statutory Obligation to Repeat Procedural Safeguards

The Court further held that the submission of a fresh police report could not, by itself, dispense with compliance with Section 8. Even treating the fresh report as a legitimate trigger for renewed proceedings, the third respondent remained statutorily bound to repeat the full procedure prescribed under Section 8, issuing fresh notice and affording a fresh opportunity of hearing before any order could validly be passed on the strength of that report. The failure, omission, or neglect to do so, the Court held, would independently vitiate the proceedings and render the resulting externment order unsustainable in law.

In light of the aforesaid findings, the Hon’ble Supreme Court allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of the High Court as well as the underlying externment order. Consequently, the appellant was declared at liberty to enter and reside in the districts from which he had been externed. The Court, however, made it expressly clear that none of its observations or findings would be construed as an adjudication on the merits of the criminal case(s) pending against the appellant, which were to be considered independently in accordance with law.