MP High Court: no cognizance under BNS s.223 without a written complaint under BNSS s.215

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench, in Rajesh Achaliya v. State of Madhya Pradesh, quashed an FIR, a chargesheet and an order taking cognizance against a student who had joined six others of the Jay Adivasi Yuva Shakti in protesting at a police station against the registration of an FIR against tribal community members. The police had registered a fresh case against the protesters under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (disobedience of an order duly promulgated by a public servant, here a prohibitory order under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), and later added Section 126(2) BNS. Justice Pavan Kumar Dwivedi, in an order pronounced on 2 November 2026, held that Section 215 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 bars a court from taking cognizance of an offence under Sections 206 to 223 of the BNS except on a written complaint by the public servant concerned or an administrative superior; here, no such complaint was made by the District Magistrate whose order was allegedly violated.

Relying on Supreme Court rulings including Iqbal Singh Marwah v. Meenakshi Marwah, the Court held that where offences are intrinsically connected to the same transaction, the bar under Section 215 cannot be bypassed by splitting off a separate charge, so cognizance of the connected Section 126(2) BNS charge was equally unsustainable. It also found the alleged gathering, from the police's own spot map, was away from the police station building, so no offence under Section 126 BNS was made out at all.