CrPC · Chapter X · Maintenance of public order and tranquillity

CrPC section 144A in the BNSS

CrPC 144ANot carried over

CrPC section 144A, “Power to prohibit carrying arms in procession or mass drill or mass training with arms”, was not carried into the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which replaced the CrPC on 1 July 2024.

What changed

Why there is no BNSS section

Not carried into the BNSS, which has no power corresponding to the CrPC’s prohibition on carrying arms in processions or mass drills with arms.

The official text

Old and new, side by side

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

Section 144A Power to prohibit carrying arms in procession or mass drill or mass training with arms

(1) The District Magistrate may, whenever he considers it necessary so to do for the preservation of public peace or public safety or for the maintenance of public order, by public notice or by order, prohibit in any area within the local limits of his jurisdiction, the carrying of arms in any procession or the organising or holding of, or taking part in, any mass drill or mass training with arms in any public place.

(2) A public notice issued or an order made under this section may be directed to a particular person or to persons belonging to any community, party or organisation.

(3) No public notice issued or an order made under this section shall remain in force for more than three months from the date on which it is issued or made.

(4) The State Government may, if it considers necessary so to do for the preservation of public peace or public safety or for the maintenance of public order, by notification, direct that a public notice issued or order made by the District Magistrate under this section shall remain in force for such further period not exceeding six months from the date on which such public notice or order was issued or made by the District Magistrate would have, but for such direction, expired, as it may specify in the said notification.

(5) The State Government may, subject to such control and directions as it may deem fit to impose, by general or special order, delegate its powers under sub-section (4) to the District Magistrate.

Explanation.—The word “arms” shall have the meaning assigned to it in section 153AA of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860).

The texts are India Code’s. The amendment markers and footnotes of the official print are left out, so the old section reads as it stood when it was repealed; State amendments are not shown. The PDFs linked below carry the full history.

Old law or new?

Which one applies to a case

The BNSS repealed the CrPC from 1 July 2024 (section 531(1)). Any appeal, application, trial, inquiry or investigation pending immediately before that date is disposed of under the CrPC as it then stood, as if the BNSS had not come into force (section 531(2)(a)). Anything not pending on that date follows the BNSS.