Videos circulating from the recent protests near Jantar Mantar in Delhi have once again brought a familiar controversy into sharp focus. Demonstrators and journalists captured images of men in civilian clothes wielding police lathis, some without visible nameplates or rank insignia, and in certain cases with faces partially covered. Delhi Police later confirmed that the individuals were officers deployed for crowd control during the Cockroach Janata Party’s march. The episode has revived a long-standing question: can Indian police officers legally conceal their identity while managing protests, and what does the law actually require?
The short answer is that police forces may deploy personnel in plain clothes for operational reasons, but the exercise of coercive powers—especially the power to disperse assemblies or use force—carries strong expectations of identifiability under both statute and judicial principle. Complete anonymity undermines the legal authority of commands and weakens accountability.
The Statutory Framework: BNSS and Public Order
The primary law governing the maintenance of public order is Chapter XI of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which replaced the corresponding provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Sections 148 to 160 deal with unlawful assemblies and the use of force to disperse them.
Section 148 is particularly relevant. It states that any Executive Magistrate, or the officer in charge of a police station, or (in their absence) any police officer not below the rank of sub-inspector, may command an unlawful assembly—or any assembly of five or more persons likely to cause a disturbance of the public peace—to disperse. Once the command is given, members of the assembly are legally obliged to disperse. If they do not, the same authorities may use force and even call upon civilians for assistance.
The section is carefully worded. It confers the power to issue a binding command only on a magistrate or a “police officer.” Legal practitioners argue that this language presupposes recognisability. An unidentified group of armed men cannot, in the ordinary course, issue a command that carries statutory force under Section 148. If citizens cannot reasonably know that the person issuing orders or using force is a police officer, the legitimacy of the action is open to challenge. The law does not explicitly ban plainclothes deployment, but its structure assumes that the person exercising authority can be identified as such.
Other provisions in the chapter, including those dealing with the use of armed forces (Section 149) and protection for acts done in good faith (Section 151), similarly operate on the premise of official capacity. None of them authorise anonymous force as a routine method of crowd management.
Judicial Emphasis on Identification
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) remains the most authoritative statement on police identification. Although the case primarily addressed custodial violence and the rights of arrested persons, the Court laid down mandatory guidelines that have wider resonance. One of the key directions requires that “the police personnel carrying out the arrest and handling the interrogation of the arrestee should bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tags with their designations.” The particulars of all such personnel must also be recorded in a register.
Courts and lawyers have treated this requirement as reflecting a broader constitutional principle: when the state exercises coercive power over citizens, the agents of the state should be identifiable. Identifiability enables accountability. It allows victims of excesses to name officers in complaints, enables departmental inquiries, and supports civil or criminal proceedings where necessary. While D.K. Basu dealt specifically with arrests, High Courts have extended the underlying logic to situations involving the use of force in public spaces.
In 2025, the Andhra Pradesh High Court, hearing a petition by a legislator who faced charges of obstructing police officers, questioned how citizens could be expected to recognise personnel acting in plain clothes as police officers. The observation underscored a practical difficulty: if an officer is not in uniform and does not display identification, a citizen may reasonably doubt whether the person has lawful authority. This doubt can itself become a defence in subsequent legal proceedings.
Why Police Use Plain Clothes
Police departments offer several operational justifications for deploying personnel without uniforms or visible identifiers. In high-conflict environments such as parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab during the insurgency years, or left-wing extremism-affected areas, officers have long avoided nameplates and rank insignia to reduce the risk of targeted retaliation against themselves or their families. Over time, these practices have migrated into routine law-and-order duties in other parts of the country.
Officers also argue that visible identification during large protests can expose them to prolonged litigation, social media harassment, and personal threats. In the heat of a crowd situation, rapid movement and the need to blend into or quickly extract from a situation sometimes favour civilian clothing. Delhi Police, responding to the recent controversy, described the use of plainclothes personnel as a lawful tactical choice for managing an unauthorised assembly.
These considerations are not without merit in genuine security scenarios. Intelligence work, undercover operations, and certain specialised units necessarily require anonymity. The difficulty arises when the same approach is applied to ordinary public-order management in a democratic setting. What may be justifiable in a counter-insurgency theatre becomes far more contentious when applied to student or political protests in the national capital.
Accountability and Democratic Implications
The central concern is accountability. When force is used by unidentified individuals, it becomes significantly harder for citizens to file accurate complaints, for supervisory officers to fix responsibility, and for courts to examine the proportionality of the response. Videos of plainclothes men using lathis create an impression of unaccountable force, eroding public trust even when the underlying action may have been legally authorised.
In a constitutional democracy, the police derive their legitimacy from the law and from public confidence. The uniform and nameplate are not mere formalities; they are visible symbols that the person using force does so under colour of law and is answerable for that use. When those symbols are deliberately removed, the line between state authority and private violence can appear blurred, at least in the eyes of the public.
Citizens who encounter plainclothes personnel claiming to be police have limited practical options. They may ask the person to identify themselves and produce an official identity card. In cases of genuine doubt, contacting the police control room (112) is advisable. Refusal to identify oneself when exercising coercive powers weakens the officer’s legal position and strengthens any subsequent challenge.
Striking a Balance
Indian law does not impose an absolute prohibition on plainclothes policing. Specialised operations and genuine security threats may require it. However, the statutory scheme under the BNSS and the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in D.K. Basu both point in the same direction: when police officers exercise powers of dispersal, arrest, or use of force in public, they should ordinarily be identifiable.
The recent scenes from Delhi illustrate the tension between operational convenience and democratic accountability. Extending practices developed in conflict zones into everyday protest management risks normalising a form of policing that is difficult to scrutinise. Courts have already begun to question the practice. Legislative clarification or clearer departmental standing orders on the use of plain clothes during public assemblies would help resolve the ambiguity.
Until then, the guiding principle remains clear. Authority without identity is difficult to reconcile with the rule of law. Police officers are entitled to protect themselves and to use force when the law permits, but citizens are equally entitled to know who is exercising that force in their name.
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