"Whose peace am I being asked to keep?"
By raising this question, All India Students' Association president Neha Bora has turned what could have been a little-known preventive proceeding before a Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) into a broader debate on protest, public order, and personal liberty.
Bora told reporters on Saturday, 24 October, that she had not and AISA would not sign the Rs 10,000 peace bond she was asked to sign after participating in the "Lehra Do Tiranga" march in Delhi on 16 October. She said signing it would "normalise" bonds against dissent.
On Saturday, she appeared before the magistrate, received the papers and was given until October 29 to respond.
Section 126 of the BNSS empowers an Executive Magistrate, who receives information that there is a likelihood of any person to commit breach of peace, cause a disturbance of the public tranquillity or commit a wrongful act which is likely to cause such disturbance, to ask that person to show cause why her security should not be taken for maintaining peace.
The provision derives from Section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which in turn stems from colonial criminal procedure. This principle has survived not only legal and constitutional upheavals but also shifts in political regimes and ideologies, giving the police the power to act before an offence occurs. But the power has safeguards for citizens.