In a crisp, no-nonsense ruling, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has swept aside the rioting and unlawful assembly case once hanging over Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and other AAP leaders — a case born out of a spirited 2020 protest that spiraled into police allegations but not, as the Court noted, actual evidence.
The controversy stemmed from a march against an electricity tariff hike, where AAP workers planned to surround the then–Punjab Chief Minister’s residence. They never got that far. A water cannon blocked their path, tempers rose, and the police claimed stones followed. But when the Court dug into the details, the story didn’t hold.
On November 29, the bench made it clear: the protest wasn’t illegal to begin with. No prohibitory order under Section 144 of the CrPC had been issued. And as for the stone-pelting? No names, no roles, no words of provocation, nothing tying even a thread of responsibility to the petitioners.
The Court observed that the crowd’s agitation seemed to stem from being drenched by the water cannon rather than any instruction from the leaders. Minor injuries to officials, it said, were just as likely the result of the chaos that followed — shoving, jostling, people pushing forward — not orchestrated violence.
Unlawful assembly? Not without a Section 144 order. Rioting? Not without evidence of intent or direction. And with those pillars missing, the entire case collapsed.
The FIR, the chargesheet, the whole package — gone.
In the same breath, the Court also struck down a similar 2021 FIR tied to a separate AAP protest over the Lakhimpur Kheri episode, extending the same logic: protests are not crimes unless the law says so and evidence backs it.
In the end, the judgment does more than clear names — it draws a line in bold: dissent isn’t disorder, and a crowd isn’t a crime scene by default.
