Model: show-cause order under s.130 BNSS

Security proceedings are the Executive Magistrate’s only genuinely quasi-judicial docket — the one place you take evidence and pass appealable orders — and they begin with this document. Section 130 is unusually prescriptive about what the opening order must contain, which makes it one of the few models where the checklist is statutory, not conventional.

When you need this

A police calendar lands on your table reporting that a named person is likely to commit a breach of the peace or disturb the public tranquillity — a faction leader before a festival, rival organisers trading threats, a rowdy-sheeter active before elections. If you form the opinion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding under s.126, the law’s next step is not a summons in the abstract but a written order under s.130 telling the person exactly what is alleged and exactly what bond is proposed. The same s.130 form, with the section and bond term adjusted, opens proceedings under ss.127–129 (dissemination of certain matters, suspected persons, habitual offenders); the specimen below is the s.126 workhorse.

The model

BEFORE THE SUB-DIVISIONAL MAGISTRATE, [NAME OF DIVISION] DIVISION
Present: [NAME OF OFFICER], Deputy Collector and Sub-Divisional Magistrate

M.C. No. [CASE NO.]/[YEAR]
(Proceedings under section 126 of the BNSS, 2023)

ORDER UNDER SECTION 130 OF THE BHARATIYA NAGARIK SURAKSHA SANHITA, 2023

To
   [NAME OF RESPONDENT], S/o [FATHER'S NAME], aged [AGE] years,
   occupation [OCCUPATION], resident of [HOUSE NO., NAME OF VILLAGE],
   [NAME OF MANDAL] mandal, [DISTRICT] district.

WHEREAS information has been laid before me by the Station House Officer,
[NAME OF POLICE STATION] P.S., in his report dated [DATE], that you are
likely to commit a breach of the peace and disturb the public tranquillity
within the limits of [NAME OF VILLAGE] village, in that:

   (a) on [DATE] you, with your associates, [SUBSTANCE OF FIRST INCIDENT —
       e.g. obstructed the rival group's procession near the village
       chavadi and threatened its organisers with dire consequences],
       in respect of which Cr.No. [CRIME NO.]/[YEAR] of [POLICE STATION]
       P.S. is registered;

   (b) on [DATE] you [SUBSTANCE OF SECOND INCIDENT — e.g. openly declared
       at the weekly market that you would not allow the festival
       procession to pass through the village]; and

   (c) the [NAME OF FESTIVAL] festival falls on [DATE], and the said
       reports disclose a reasonable apprehension that you will commit a
       breach of the peace on or about that occasion;

AND WHEREAS on the material aforesaid I am of opinion that there is
sufficient ground for proceeding against you under section 126 of the
BNSS, 2023;

NOW, THEREFORE, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 130 of the
BNSS, 2023, you are hereby required to appear before me at my office at
[PLACE] on [DATE] at [TIME], either in person or by an advocate duly
instructed, and to show cause why you should not be ordered to execute a
bond, with sureties, for keeping the peace for a period of [TERM — NOT
EXCEEDING ONE YEAR] in the sum of Rs. [AMOUNT], with [NUMBER — e.g. TWO]
sureties, each being a resident householder of [AREA] of good character
and antecedents and each in the sum of Rs. [AMOUNT].

Take notice that on your failure to appear on the date fixed, further
action will be taken against you in accordance with law.

Given under my hand and the seal of this office, this [DATE].

                                             [SIGNATURE]
                                             ([NAME OF OFFICER])
                                             Sub-Divisional Magistrate,
                                             [NAME OF DIVISION]
Copy to: The Station House Officer, [NAME OF POLICE STATION] P.S., for
service on the respondent [where the respondent is not present in court,
together with the summons/warrant issued herewith, to which a copy of
this order shall be annexed]; case file.

Anatomy — why each part is there

1. The cause-title and case number. From this order forward you are running a case, not a file: it gets an M.C. (magisterial case) number, a case diary through the peshkar, and dated hearings. The proceeding it opens is appealable (s.414) and revisable (s.438), so it must look and behave like a judicial record from the first page.
2. The full description of the respondent. Name, parentage, age, occupation, residence. The bond, if ordered, binds this person and no one else; a vague description is how the wrong brother gets served and the right one walks free — and how service itself gets litigated.
3. The “WHEREAS information has been laid” recital. Section 126 is triggered by information that a person is likely to commit a breach of the peace. Naming the source (the SHO’s report, by date) shows the jurisdictional fact — that information existed before opinion was formed — and gives the respondent what natural justice requires: knowledge of the case to meet.
4. The lettered sub-paragraphs — the substance of the information. This is the first of s.130’s four mandatory contents. “Substance” means the incidents in workable detail — dates, places, acts, crime numbers — not the police report verbatim and not a bare conclusion (“you are a danger to the peace”). The respondent must be able to answer each allegation specifically; the inquiry under s.135 will be run allegation by allegation against exactly this list, so anything left out here is hard to bring in later.
5. The apprehended-occasion recital (sub-para (c)). Section 126 is preventive, so the order should show the apprehension is live and forward-looking — the coming festival, the pending election — not a punishment for the past incidents recited. An order that reads as retrospective punishment gets set aside for exactly that.
6. The opinion recital. “I am of opinion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding” is the Magistrate’s own mind on record. It converts the police calendar into a magisterial proceeding; without it the order reads as ministerial forwarding of a police request, which is the standing ground of challenge in bind-over cases.
7. The requirement to appear and show cause. The fixed date, time and place, and the express liberty to appear by advocate. If the person is present in court when the order is made, s.131 requires it to be read over to him (and explained, if he asks); if not present, s.132 requires a summons — or a warrant where breach of the peace cannot otherwise be prevented — and s.133 requires a copy of this very order to accompany it. The “Copy to” block builds that service chain in.
8. The bond particulars — amount, term, sureties. The remaining three mandatory contents of s.130, all stated as figures the respondent can see: the sum of the bond, the term (which under s.126 cannot exceed one year; ss.127–129 allow up to three), and the number, character and class of sureties. “Character and class” is why the specimen says resident householders of good character — the respondent is entitled to know what kind of surety he must find, and you are entitled, at the s.136 stage, to reject sureties who do not measure up.
9. The signature and seal. The order is the foundation of everything that follows — the s.135 inquiry, the s.136 security order or s.137 discharge, imprisonment in default under s.141. Every later stage will be tested against this document, which is why it carries the formality of hand and seal.

Adaptation traps

• Omitting any of the four statutory contents. Substance of information, bond amount, term, sureties: the section says the order “shall set forth” all four. A notice that says “execute a bond as may be fixed” or leaves the term blank is not an irregularity — it is a defect in the foundation that infects the whole proceeding.
• Copy-pasting the rowdy sheet as the “substance”. The police dossier is source material, not drafting. Distil it into specific, dated, answerable allegations; a notice reciting “you are a notorious rowdy of the area” gives the respondent nothing to rebut and gives the Sessions Judge, on appeal under s.414, everything to reverse.
• Wrong section for the person. Habitual offenders belong under s.129, suspected persons concealing their presence under s.128, disseminators of inflammatory matter under s.127 — each with a bond term of up to three years, against one year under s.126. Opening under s.126 and then ordering a three-year bond, or vice versa, mismatches notice and order.
• Forgetting the six-month clock. The inquiry under s.135 must be completed within six months of its commencement, failing which the proceedings stand terminated (save for recorded special reasons). Issuing the notice and letting the case drift is the commonest way a well-founded bind-over dies.
• Mass-produced notices before bandobast. Fifty identical orders differing only in the name, each reciting the same boilerplate incident, advertise non-application of mind serially. Each respondent’s notice must recite the information about him.
• Treating the notice as the punishment. The order compels appearance and answer; it decides nothing. Detaining a person on its strength, or pressuring an “undertaking” outside the s.135 inquiry, converts a preventive jurisdiction into an illegal one.

An illustrative skeleton for learning — always draft from the current Act, Rules and standing instructions, and have your first drafts settled by your senior.