Petition in Supreme Court seeks ban on pellet guns

A former IPS officer and two individuals injured during the Cockroach Janata Party-led Sansad Chalo march have petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a ban on pellet guns used for crowd control. They allege that Rapid Action Force personnel fired pellets without provocation, violating their constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

New Delhi: A petition was filed in Supreme Court on Monday by a former IPS officer and two persons, who claimed to have been injured by pellet guns fired during the recent Cockroach Janta Party-led Parliament march to protest against NEET paper leak.

The petition filed by Yashovardhan Azad, Prashant Kumar and Sheikh Irshad Mansoori through advocate Vrinda Grover, sought direction for “decommissioning or banning the use of wholly or partly metallic kinetic projectiles or pellets, fired from pump action rifles or Projectile Action Guns (PAG) for dispersal of civilian assemblies by law enforcement agencies”.

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Kumar (25), an artist, said he was present at the Sansad Chalo march on July 20 as a peaceful protester and claimed that he received pellet injuries from firing by Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel without provocation or aggression from his end.

Mansoori (26), on the other hand, said he was at Delhi’s Connaught Place after attending to passport and visa-related work and had received pellet injuries from RAF firing despite there being no provocation or aggression from his end.

The plea said, “On July 20, 2026, during the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march organised by the Cockroach Janata Party as part of a protest regarding rampant paper leaks wreaking the credibility of higher education in India, the Delhi Police used the assistance of the CRPF’s Rapid Action Force for crowd management.

“Petitioner Nos 2 and 3 personally witnessed that around 4-4.30 pm on that day, the police and RAF personnel incessantly fired tear gas shells and resorted to lathi charge and pushed the protestors towards the inner circle of Connaught Place, New Delhi.”

It further said pertinently, no water cannons were used, and no announcements were made about the impending use of force. While the protesters were fleeing, with many raising their arms up as if in “surrender” mode, despite no provocation, RAF personnel suddenly fired pump action gun(s), releasing a wide spray of splinter-like pellets, which penetrated the bodies of Petitioner Nos 2 and 3, causing immediate pain and bleeding.

The petitioners said the Right to Freedom of Assembly is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right, amenable to be curbed only through reasonable restrictions imposed pursuant to Article 19(3) of the Constitution of India.

They added that the restrictions imposed under Article 19(3), to pass the test of being a “reasonable restriction”, must be demonstrably compliant with the doctrines of necessity and proportionality as laid down in various judgments of the Supreme Court.

“… projectile action guns are per se unfit for dispersal of peaceful assemblies, and the petitioners contend that use of such weapons should be banned or decommissioned in deployment of security personnel when dealing with civilian assemblies,” the petitioners said.

They said the sporadic and unpredictable nature of the trajectory of pellets once fired makes pellet guns an unreasonable, arbitrary and dangerous tool unfit for deployment to disperse civilian assemblies.

“The very mechanism of the pellets disqualifies them from being a legally valid option for crowd control, as it cannot be qualitatively stated to fall within the ‘least amount of necessary force’ at any given point of time, in view of its erratic kinetic projectile movement,” the petition said.

Besides seeking decommissioning or banning the use of pellet guns wholly or partly, the petitioners sought exemplary compensation to all victims of pellet injuries caused by the State action on July 20 in New Delhi, as well as to ensure their complete medical treatment, care and rehabilitation.