Preventive justice requires the state to act to stop individuals from causing harm that has yet to occur. The law tolerates such restraint only for as long as the risk that justifies it lasts. In Aldanish Rein v. State (2018), the Delhi high court capped the custody ordered by Special Executive Magistrates (SEM) at seven days at a stretch.On Wednesday (October 21), after seven days of judicial custody, SEM Ritu Raj freed Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.The police had sought three more days of their custody, citing Das and Ranka’s statements and conduct. The SEM seemed satisfied with the sureties, as the order had sought a report on their verification on Friday (October 23). A surety is a person who stands guarantee for someone released, who must pay the sum named in the bond if its terms are broken.The order held that further custody “does not appear to be necessary at this stage”, citing the written undertakings given by Das and Ranka. Both of them reiterated their commitment to peace and promised to make no “calls for protest at Jantar Mantar” while its de-notification stands.Two days earlier, the same SEM had found that their assurance not to repeat the conduct “did not inspire confidence”.Also read: Can the Police Judge Its Own Case? Why Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka’s Imprisonment Defies Basic Legal PrincipleAldanish Rein requires release on personal bonds while sureties are verified, and Das and Ranka had sought exactly that on October 16. The record placed before the high court shows that acceptable sureties had been on offer all week long. This is seen in the writ petition in which they had challenged the SEM’s October 19 order extending their custody by two days.On October 16, their petition had claimed that the defence offered sureties backed by bank-verified fixed deposits and sought release on personal bonds pending verification. The verification reports of October 17 found both deposits “genuine and valid” and confirmed that both sureties lived at the addresses given.Cockroach Janta Party’s Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka leave Mandir Marg police station, in New Delhi, Wednesday, October 21, 2026, after a special executive magistrate ordered their release Photo: PTI/Karma BhutiaThe law allows a magistrate to refuse a surety as unfit, meaning unable to pay or unworthy of trust, only after a sworn inquiry. The petition stated that the rejections on October 19 did not follow this procedure.On October 18, the SEM rejected both sureties, whom the police faulted for having been detained in the past and for having an “association” with Das and Ranka. The petition stated that two more sureties, with signed bonds and fixed deposits, were present on October 19 but they were never taken up.Sureties of the same quality were refused on October 18 and accepted, subject to verification, on October 21. In the interim, Das and Ranka gave a written undertaking, and the seven-day limit set in Aldanish Rein ran out. Based on this record, the length of the custody owed as much to the calendar as to any reassessment of risk.Justice S. Muralidhar, a former chief justice of the Orissa high court, wrote Aldanish Rein as a Delhi high court judge. On Wednesday morning, before either hearing, he told Scroll.in what that judgment directs.It lays down, he said, that “the excuse of verification of sureties cannot justify the extension of judicial custody”. He added that he did not think “this particular magistrate was prepared to even acknowledge the Delhi high court judgement, much less follow it”.The word “association”, which the police have used against the sureties, resurfaced on Wednesday in the Delhi high court. “People remain the same, cause is changing,” Justice Subramonium Prasad observed, before asking: “What is your association, what is the purpose of your association?”The judge also asked whether “insistence on a surety” could be called illegal when “one preventive notice has been broken”. The petition, on its part, complained about the refusal of sureties that had already been verified, and of the custody that in the meantime continued.Also read: Peace, Protests and Preventive Arrest: The Law on Das and Ranka’s Case, Explained in DepthHe then told Abhik Chimni, the advocate representing Das and Ranka, that their “remedy actually lies in revision“, and the two withdrew their petition.In his interview, Justice Muralidhar had foreseen how the day would end. By the time the high court took up the case, he said, he “would not be surprised” if the police had released the two.Revision and preventive custodyIn 2009, the Bombay high court tried to make revision keep pace with preventive custody. In Pravin Vijaykumar Taware v. Special Executive Magistrate, it directed that executive magistrates’ jail orders be sent at once to the principal sessions judge.The sessions judge, it said, could then intervene in revision if he found a case for it. Aldanish Rein quoted that direction in 2018 but did not include it among its own directions for Delhi.It is unclear whether Delhi carried out even the training and oversight directions the court issued. When asked, Justice Muralidhar said, “I am not aware if those directions were complied with.” Release, in his view, should not end the legal question. The high court, he said, “should not close the case saying it is infructuous but go beyond it”, which is what Aldanish Rein did.Narender, whose detention gave rise to Aldanish Rein, was freed in July 2018, months before the high court ruled. In November, the court nonetheless declared his arrest and remand illegal and awarded him Rs 25,000.Sequence of orders reversedIn Devadassan v. Second Class Executive Magistrate (2022), Justices Indira Banerjee and J.K. Maheshwari upheld a man’s jailing for breaching a peace bond.After he was named in a murder case, the magistrate issued him a show-cause notice and recorded his explanation. Only then did the magistrate find that he had broken the bond and order his arrest.For Das and Ranka, the sequence ran the other way. They were arrested first, and the notice under Section 130 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) came on October 14, while they were in custody.The October 14 order treated the breach as “evident from their conduct/social media posts”. The finding that they had “deliberately breached” their bonds came on October 19, while the inquiry was still open.On that day, according to the petition, counsel for the two pressed for orders and said they did not wish to file a reply. The magistrate nonetheless deferred the matter and asked them to show why a breach of the peace should not be apprehended.Whose judgment ‘apprehends’ an act in the future?The petition also questioned whose judgment the October 19 order records. It said every operative finding was drawn from the police application, which relied on events before October 14 and on statements from third persons.Also read: 7,000 Detained in Day of Unprecedented Police Action in DelhiThe petition added that the application also went beyond the kalandra, the police report that opens preventive proceedings. Chimni said that the police affidavit contained no statement of apprehension and referred only to earlier protests.In Asha Pant v. State (2008), Justice Muralidhar held that an SEM must form his own written opinion before acting. He wrote that a mechanical exercise on the kalandra alone would leave the power “vulnerable to being invalidated”, a holding Aldanish Rein reproduced in 2018.The police had the criminal route open throughout. The October 13 entry led to two FIRs, at the Connaught Place and Parliament Street stations. One of them, a case of trespassing, was transferred to the Crime Branch on October 19.Between them, the FIRs invoke provisions on trespass, disobedience of a public servant’s order, conspiracy, obstruction and hurt to public servants. Chimni has said that there is no FIR against his clients.The gravest of these provisions, Section 121(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, carries a maximum punishment of five years. Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) requires the police to justify any arrest for offences punishable with up to seven years.Had the police proceeded on the FIRs, a judicial magistrate would have decided custody under the law of bail. The treatment of their colleagues points the same way.Ajinkya Shinde, detained with Das and Ranka at Jantar Mantar, was released on October 14 on a personal bond. Dipke, whom the police accused of breaching his own October 11 bond, received two notices before his detention on October 16. He walked out on bail the next day, on conditions.Das and Ranka had lawyers, a public following and a petition in the high court, which most people brought before these magistrates lack.From July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, Delhi’s 14 SEM courts received 14,529 police reports seeking preventive action, covering 23,012 arrested persons. They sent 6,944 of those people to judicial custody. The high court noted that many came from economically weaker sections and could not furnish sureties.Neha Bora summoned, PIL on protesters detained in MumbaiOn Thursday (October 22), Justice Prasad is to hear a petition by Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA). She contests a notice under Sections 126 and 130 read with Section 135(3) summoning her before the SEM of the New Delhi District.Also read: From Papa II to Pandwalan Khurd: Is Delhi Learning Kashmir’s Lessons in Custody?The notice seeks a Rs 10,000 bond with one surety to keep the peace during the inquiry. Her petition calls the proceedings “an arbitrary exercise of statutory powers intended to curb peaceful dissent”, and says no imminent threat has been shown.Chimni appears for her as well, and her grounds under Articles 19 and 21 echo those of the Das and Ranka petition. Her case differs in one respect, since Bora is not in custody and contests the proceedings at the threshold.AISA chief Neha Bora being detained by the police during a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, at Mandi House, in New Delhi, Friday, October 16, 2026. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary.Asha Pant was a challenge of that kind, brought under the high court’s inherent powers, and it ended with both kalandra closed. Whether Justice Prasad points her, too, towards revision will show how far the high court will itself scrutinise such notices.Another related challenge is pending in the Bombay high court. A public interest petition by advocate Sagar Devre alleges that Mumbai police detained about 630 people at solidarity protests on October 10 and 11.The petition seeks a declaration that detaining peaceful demonstrators without individual, recorded reasons is unconstitutional. On October 19, Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna sought the state’s reply and listed the case for November 19.The Bench was guarded in its remarks, with the chief justice observing: “Everyone has a right to agitate. But there should be peaceful agitation.” The state’s advocate general said that “no person was detained”.The release ends the custody of Das and Ranka but leaves them bound by fresh bonds, with the inquiry still open. Their undertaking also goes beyond keeping the peace, as it restricts their calls to protest at Jantar Mantar.The de-notification of Jantar Mantar remains under challenge in the Supreme Court and the Delhi high court. Das and Ranka argued that a protest at a de-notified site is “at its highest, a question of regulation, not a threat to public order”.With their petition withdrawn, the high court may have evaded a response, but the question remains central to the future of protest in India.V. Venkatesan is contributing editor, Supreme Court Observer.