FILE X · 11 pages

When It Happens

Scenario playbooks — the first hour, step by step.

• A body has been found

  Confirm the SHO has intimated the nearest empowered Executive Magistrate and is moving to hold the spot inquest under BNSS 194. Start both 24-hour clocks — the inquest report must reach the DM/SDM within 24 hours, and the body must reach the civil surgeon within 24 hours of death under s. 196(6) unless reasons are recorded. If the deceased is a woman within seven years of marriage, treat the magisterial inquiry as mandatory under s. 196 and move towards the spot yourself.

  Draft

• A death in custody

  Treat the magisterial inquiry as mandatory the moment the word 'custody' appears — BNSS 196(2) requires it in addition to the police inquiry. Get the body moving to the civil surgeon within the 24-hour rule of s. 196(6), with the post-mortem videographed per NHRC practice. Put the Judicial-versus-Executive Magistrate question in writing to the DM the same day — the BNSS text says 'the Magistrate' where the CrPC said 'Judicial Magistrate', and prevailing practice sends the inquiry to the Judicial Magistrate.

  Draft

• A crowd is gathering

  Get an Executive Magistrate physically to the spot — the dispersal ladder under BNSS 148–151 runs on the Magistrate who is present. Command dispersal first, use the minimum civil force necessary only if the command fails, and put every authorisation in writing. If the situation may outlast the day, draft a s. 163 order with real recited facts now, not after the first stone.

  Draft

• A land dispute is turning violent

  Get the police to hold the peace at the spot while you get the paper right: a s. 164 BNSS preliminary order needs a police report or other information, a recorded satisfaction that a breach of the peace is likely, and a call for written statements on possession as on the date of the order. If the danger is immediate or possession is unclear, attach the land and appoint a receiver under s. 165 — the Tahsildar in practice. Remember the two-month fiction: a party forcibly dispossessed within the preceding two months is treated as still in possession.

  Draft

• Heavy rain warning, or a tank about to breach

  Activate the district control-room chain the moment the warning lands — the DDMA under the Collector is the legal spine, and your mandal or division is its field arm. Get eyes on the vulnerable tanks now: gattu, tumu and sluice condition, water against FTL, with the Irrigation section officer at the bund. Move people before water moves them — evacuation ordered early and recorded is a decision no one will fault; a delayed one is the whole enquiry.

  Draft

• A fire, a collapse, a mass-casualty accident

  Get rescue and hospitals moving before anything administrative — fire services, ambulances, and the DM&HO's casualty plan at the receiving hospital. Put an Executive Magistrate at the site and one at the hospital: every body needs an inquest under BNSS 194, and identification discipline — numbering, photographs, effects under panchanama — starts with the first body, not the tenth. Expect a magisterial enquiry to be ordered; build its record today.

  Draft

• VIP visit tomorrow

  Get the minute-to-minute programme — draft or final — in your hands tonight and read it against the ground: route, venue, timings, who receives whom. Drive the route yourself before the advance security liaison, noting every choke point and every handover. Fix your own role in writing — which segment you liaise, from where to where — because on visit day nobody has time to tell you.

  Draft

• Election notification just dropped

  Treat the Model Code of Conduct as in force from the announcement — freeze new schemes, fresh sanctions and discretionary orders through the machinery you control, and route every doubt to the District Election Officer's cell. Confirm your own election role in writing — RO, ARO, or cell duty — and open its handbook the same day. Start the law-and-order calendar now: bind-over proposals, licensed-arms review, and the s. 163 orders season.

  Draft

• Public exam duty

  Establish the custody chain for question papers before anything else — where the sealed papers sit, under whose double lock, and who signs for every movement. Issue the s. 163 perimeter order for exam centres with real recitals, promulgated before the first exam day. Constitute and brief the flying squads, and be reachable for the whole window: the leak call, if it comes, comes to the Magistrate.

  Draft

• Something went viral, and the press is at the office

  Say nothing on the record until the facts are verified and the speaking role is assigned — in a district, the Collector or the officer he designates speaks; everyone else refers. Build the factual note today: what the record actually shows, dated and cleared, so the administration's account exists before the third news cycle. Treat every RTI application in the storm as a statutory matter on its own clock, separate from press queries entirely.

  Draft

• An inspection or audit team arrives

  Identify which of the three animals has arrived — the Collector's annual inspection, an AG audit party, or a vigilance team — because each has different rules of engagement. Produce the registers they will open first without being asked twice: personal register, tappal registers, cash book. Assign one officer to the team for the duration, log every record requisitioned and returned, and answer nothing substantive except in writing.

  Draft