In a significant ruling on preventive externment jurisdiction, the Supreme Court sets aside the District Magistrate’s ex parte order and the High Court’s refusal to entertain the writ petition, holding that the District Magistrate lacked power to reopen a closed externment case and that the order also failed the statutory threshold under Section 5 of the Chhattisgarh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990.
The Supreme Court held that the statutory mandate contained in Section 8 of the Adhiniyam, requiring notice and a reasonable opportunity of hearing before an externment order is passed, is mandatory and constitutes a condition precedent for the exercise of power under Sections 3 to 6, and any order passed in derogation of these mandatory requirements stands vitiated and is void ab initio.
The Court reiterated that where hearing is obligated by a statute which affects the fundamental right of a citizen, the duty to give hearing sounds in constitutional requirement and failure to comply with such duty is fatal. The Court further held that the District Magistrate lacked statutory power, express or implied, to suo motu review, recall, or reopen his own closure order, and breach of the warning given in the closure order, without anything more, could not have clothed him with the power to reopen the closed case.
The Court also held that the conditions precedent for exercise of power under Section 5(b) were clearly not satisfied, since the offences alleged did not involve force or violence or fall within the specified categories, and that even under Section 5(a), the order fell short of the statutory requirement for want of objective material and disclosure of reasons.
A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu noted that Crime No. 117/2023, which formed one of the foundational grounds for externing the appellant, stood quashed by the High Court, and that the appellant, though an accused in Crime No. 483/2025, was enlarged on bail since the offence was not of a grave nature. It was further undisputed that the impugned externment order was passed upon revival of the closed case without prior notice to the appellant and without affording him an opportunity of hearing, at a time when he was in judicial custody.
The Court examined the statutory scheme of the Adhiniyam and observed that Section 8 thereof makes issuance of notice by the District Magistrate and affording the proposed externee a reasonable opportunity of hearing conditions precedent for the exercise of power under Sections 3 to 6. Sub-section (5) of Section 8 contemplates only two contingencies as exceptions to the general requirement of participation by the affected person, namely, failure to execute the security bond or failure to appear before the District Magistrate during the inquiry, neither of which was present in the appellant’s case.
The Court further observed that invocation of Section 5(b) of the Adhiniyam was wholly misconceived, since none of the offences alleged against the appellant involved force or violence or fell within the categories contemplated by Section 5(b), namely, offences under Chapters XII, XVI or XVII of the IPC or offences punishable under Sections 506 or 509 thereof.
Even on the assumption that the order was intended to be founded solely on Section 5(a), the Court found that the order did not indicate the objective material on the basis of which the District Magistrate arrived at his subjective satisfaction, and no discernible nexus was shown between the material and the conclusion reached. The Court also noted that an administrative authority enjoys no power to review its earlier order unless the statute empowers it to do so, and no such empowering provision was shown to exist in the present case.
Briefly, the appellant, Vijay Kumar Rajpoot, challenged an ex parte order of externment dated 04 November 2025 passed by the District Magistrate, Raigarh, directing him to remove himself from the territorial limits of Raigarh district and contiguous districts for a period of one year. The genesis of the externment proceedings lay in a memorandum dated 03 April 2019 submitted by the Superintendent of Police, Raigarh, recommending externment based on the appellant’s alleged involvement in ten criminal cases registered between 2009 and 2019. The District Magistrate initially registered a case for externment in May 2019 but, by an order dated 06 October 2025, closed the proceedings after recording that the appellant had been acquitted in the criminal cases relied upon, no fresh police report had been submitted after 2019, and initiation of externment on the basis of the old cases was not justified.
Two subsequent developments reignited the controversy: first, FIR was registered against the appellant under the Chhattisgarh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956 in connection with alleged unauthorised development of a colony; and secondly, FIR was registered against him under Sections 296, 299, 302, 352 and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and Section 3(1)(v) of the SC/ST Act, 1989, on the allegation that he had recorded and circulated a video containing abusive remarks against Baba Guru Ghasidas, a revered figure of the Satnami community.
Acting on a fresh report from the Superintendent of Police dated 03 November 2025, the District Magistrate recalled the closure order and passed the impugned externment order ex parte, while the appellant was in judicial custody in connection with one crime. The appellant approached the High Court by way of a writ petition, which was dismissed with the observation that he should pursue the alternative statutory remedy of appeal under Section 9 of the Chhattisgarh Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam, 1990.
