A Section 163 BNSS order expires after 60 days unless specifically extended.

The petitioners challenged the order dated 12 August 2024 passed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Sadar, Purnea, in Case No. 752 of 2024 under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (“BNSS”), initiating proceedings and issuing show-cause notices.

Thereafter, by order dated 8 October 2024, the Executive Magistrate directed both parties to maintain status quo concerning the disputed property until disposal of the civil suit pending between them.

The petitioners challenged that order in Criminal Revision No. 161 of 2024. On 16 January 2025, the Sessions Court held that the Section 163 order had ceased to operate after 60 days, there being no specific extension, and dismissed the revision as infructuous.

Despite this, the petitioners alleged that the local police continued preventing them from accessing their residential property and from carrying out electricity or construction work, on the ground that the order dated 8 October 2024 had not been set aside.

The State and private respondents conceded that the order was no longer operative.

Whether the order dated 8 October 2024 passed under Section 163 BNSS continued to operate after expiry of the statutory period in the absence of a specific extension?

Whether the police could continue enforcing the expired status quo direction or otherwise prevent the petitioners from accessing and dealing with the disputed property?

Whether the parties were required to seek any further interim protection concerning the civil dispute from the competent Civil Court?

The Court applied Section 163 BNSS, under which an order passed by the Executive Magistrate operates only for the statutorily prescribed period unless specifically extended; the judgment records the ordinary period as 60 days and notes that even with extension the maximum period is six months.

Once that period expires without a valid extension, the order ceases to have legal force and cannot bind the parties.

Questions concerning possession, access, construction, electricity, or other interim protection in a pending civil property dispute must be addressed by the competent Civil Court rather than enforced through an expired executive-magistrate order.

The Revisional Court had already held that the order dated 8 October 2024 had lost force because more than 60 days had elapsed and no extension had been granted.

The High Court found that the police had misinterpreted the Revisional Court’s dismissal of the revision as infructuous, incorrectly treating the absence of an express order setting aside the Magistrate’s direction as meaning that the direction remained operative.

Applying the statutory time limit under Section 163 BNSS, the Court held that expiry of the order’s statutory life rendered it unenforceable; consequently, neither the petitioners nor the private respondents remained bound by the status quo direction.

Any continuing dispute regarding the property, including the need for interim restraint, had to be placed before the Civil Court where the civil suit was pending.

The police could not rely on that expired order to restrict the petitioners’ access to the property or to prevent related activities.

The parties were left free to seek appropriate interim relief from the competent Civil Court.

The writ petition was accordingly disposed of.