PEOPLES UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES & ANR. versus THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA & ORS.

[2026] 1 S.C.R. 1202 : 2026 INSC 79

Peoples Union for Civil Liberties & Anr. v. The State of Maharashtra & Ors.

(Criminal Appeal No. 1255 of 1999)

15 January 2026

[M.M. Sundresh and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, JJ.]

Issue for Consideration

Matter pertains to issuance of direction to the States to evolve an appropriate policy for media briefing.

Headnotes

Police Manual – Police Manual for Media Briefing – Police Manual for Media Briefing prepared by the Amicus, considering the views of the Union of India and the prevailing international practices – Issuance of direction to the States to evolve an appropriate policy for Media Briefing, taking into consideration the Police Manual for Media Briefing furnished by the Amicus Curiae – Needful to be done within the stipulated period – Registry to upload the Police Manual for Media Briefing on the Supreme Court Website. [Paras 2-4]

List of Keywords

Police Manual; Police Manual for Media Briefing; Police Manual for Media Briefing prepared by Amicus.

Case Arising From

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 1255 of 1999

From the Judgment and Order dated 22.02.1999, 23.02.1999, 24.02.1999, and 25.02.1999 of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in CRLWP No. 1146 of 1997

With

Crl. A. No(s). 1256, 1367 of 1999, W.P. (C) No. 316 of 2008, Conmt. Pet. (C) No. 47 of 2011 In W.P. (C) No. 316 of 2008, T.C. (C) No. 27 of 2011 and W.P. (Crl.) No. 380 of 2021

Appearances for Parties

Advs. for the Appellant(s):

Aditya Sharma, Jayant Bajaj, Parekh & Co., Ms. Sumita Hazarika, Ms. Nisha Bhambani, Anjani Kumar Mishra, P. N. Puri, Dhiraj, Akshat Vachher.

Advs. for the Respondent(s):

Tushar Mehta, SG, Mrs. Aishwarya Bhati, A.S.G., Avdhesh Kumar Singh, Shiv Mangal Sharma, A.A.Gs., Gopal Shankaranarayanan, Mrs. Ruchi Kohli, Sr. Advs., Ms. Shivani Vij, Vishal Sinha, Tushar Srivastava, Ms. Samruti Gangadharaiaha, Kanu Agrawal, Shashwat Parihar, Harish Pandey, Rajat Nair, Varun Chugh, Santosh Ramdurg, Navanjay Mahapatra, Bhuvan Kapoor, Ms. Mrinal Elkar Mazumdar, Krishna Kant Dubey, Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, Gautam Bharadwaj, Anmol Chandan, Bhuvan Kapoor, Diwakar Sharma, Dr. N. Visakamurthy, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Chinmayee Chandra, Navanjay Mahapatra, Raman Yadav, Ishaan Sharma, Mrigank Pathak, T.A. Khan, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Ms. Rekha Pandey, Amrish Kumar, Manan Verma, Ms. Anubha Dhulia, Sumit Kumar, Pranjal Tandon, Jayant Mohan, Ms. Meenakshi Chaterjee, Ms. Adya Shree Dutta, Ms. Dorjee Ongmu Lachungpa, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Shrirang B. Varma, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Adarsh Dubey, Ms. Chitransha Singh Sikarwar, Ms. Ankita Sharma, Arjun D. Singh, Ms. Ishika Neogi, Shuvodeep Roy, Deepayan Dutta, Saurabh Tripathi, Manish Kumar, Divyansh Mishra, Kumar Saurav, Hrishikesh Baruah, Yashaswy Ghosh, Kshitij Singh, Utkarsh Dwivedi, Ms. Pragya Agarwal, Ms. Nishtha Sachan, V. K. Verma, Rajat Srivastav, Manjit Solanki, Sunny Choudhary, Harmeet Singh Ruprah, Abhinav Shrivastava, Ms. Vanshaja Shukla, Ms. Ankeeta Appanna, Ajay Bahuguna, Mrs. Prerna Dhall, Ambuj Swaroop, Kapil Katare, Ms. Rajnandani Kumari, Prashant Singh, Saksham Gahoi, Vishwas Sharma, Guntur Pramod Kumar, Samarth Krishan Luthra, Dhruv Yadav, Ms. Sharmila Upadhyay, Sarvjit Pratap Singh, Ms. Sumita Hazarika, Ms. Nisha Bhambani, Sameer Abhyankar, Rahul Kumar, Krishna Rastogi, Ms. Yachna Sharma, Ms. Arushi Chopra, Aakash Thakur, Aryan Srivastava, Ms. Diksha Rai, Piyush Vyas, Ms. Purvat Wali, Raj Kumar, Anand Ranjan, Rajiv Kumar Sinha, Siddhant Sharma, Vikram Choudhary, Ms. Devina Sehgal, Srikanth Varma Mudunuru, Akshat Kumar, Vikas Negi, Ms. Abhinandini Sharma, Ms. Sonali Gaur, Ms. Nidhi Jaswal,Ms. Vanshaja Shukla, Ms. Ankeeta Appanna, Ajay Bahuguna, Himanshu Shekhar Tripathi, Somkirti Singhdeo, Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, Nimesh Bhatt, Aravindh S., Akshay Gupta, Manish Kumar, Divyansh Mishra, Kumar Saurav, Lenin Singh Hijam, Ag, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, Karun Sharma, Ms. Anupama Ngangom, Ms. Rajkumari Divyasana, Anando Mukherjee, Shwetank Singh, Ms. Pooja Singh, Avijit Mani Tripathi, T.k. Nayak, Ms. Marbiang Khongwir, Vikas Bansal, Harshad V. Hameed, Dileep Poolakkot, Mrs. Ashly Harshad, Mahabir Singh, Dr. Arunender Thakur, Anshul Saharan, Samar Vijay Singh, Ms. Sabarni Som, Aman Dev Sharma, Gaj Singh, Eashwar, Ms. Richa Verma, Ms. Hemantika Wahi, Praveen Agrawal, D. S. Mahra, Abhisth Kumar, M/s Coac, Chanchal Kumar Ganguli, M/s Karanjawala & Co., Sudarshan Rajan, Shibashish Misra, P. V. Yogeswaran, Anil K. Chopra, M/s Corporate Law Group, Guntur Prabhakar, D. Mahesh Babu, Rajiv Shankar Dwivedi, Ms. Tulika Mukherjee, Beenu Sharma, Venkat Narayan, Mrs. Anil Katiyar, Samir Ali Khan, Ranjan Mukherjee, Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, Gopal Singh, Anil Shrivastav, Sanjay Kumar Visen, Ms. G. Indira, B. Krishna Prasad, Ashok Kumar Singh, T. Mahipal, Ms. Ruchira Goel, Sumit Sinha, Karan Sharma, Sabarish Subramanian, Saurabh Trivedi, Akshay Amritanshu, Ms. Nupur Kumar, Mahfooz Ahsan Nazki, Raghvendra Kumar, Pradeep Misra.

Petitioner-in-person.

Judgment / Order of the Supreme Court

Order

1. We take on record the laborious exercise undertaken by the learned Senior counsel Mr. Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who has been appointed as the Amicus Curiae to assist the Court.

2. The Police Manual for Media Briefing has been prepared by the learned Amicus, considering the views of the Union of India and the practices prevalent at the international level. Notwithstanding the time granted by this Court on earlier occasions, the States have not shown adequate interest in taking note of the Manual and doing the needful.

3. We do not want to keep these matter(s) pending any longer. We deem it appropriate to direct the States to evolve an appropriate policy for Media Briefing by taking into consideration the Police Manual for Media Briefing furnished by the learned Amicus Curiae. The needful will have to be done within a period of three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.

4. The Registry is directed to upload the Police Manual for media Briefing on the Supreme Court Website within a period of two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.

5. We once again place on record our appreciation for the able assistance rendered by the learned Amicus Curiae.

6. No orders are required in the applications for interventions and they are disposed of, accordingly.

7. The appeals, the transferred case and the writ petitions# stand disposed of accordingly, and the Contempt Petition stands closed.

8. Pending application(s), if any, shall also stand disposed of.

Result of the case: Appeals and Writ Petitions disposed of.

Contempt Petition closed.

# Ed. Note: “The appeals, the transferred case and the writ petitions” instead of “The appeals and the writ petitions” in terms of subsequent corrigendum.