Can Police Enter Your Home without Permission

Section 47 of CrPC or Section 44 of BNSS - (1) If any person acting under a warrant of arrest, or any police officer having authority to arrest, has reason to believe that the person to be arrested has entered into, or is within, any place, any person residing in, or being in charge of such place shall, on demand of such person acting as aforesaid or such police officer, allow him free ingress thereto, and afford all reasonable facilities for a search therein.

(2) If ingress to such place cannot be obtained under sub-section (1), it shall be lawful in any case for a person acting under a warrant and in any case in which a warrant may issue, but cannot be obtained without affording the person to be arrested an opportunity of escape, for a police officer to enter such place and search therein, and in order to effect an entrance into such place, to break open any outer or inner door or window of any house or place, whether that of the person to be arrested or of any other person, if after notification of his authority and purpose, and demand of admittance duly made, he cannot otherwise obtain admittance :Provided that, if any such place is an apartment in the actual occupancy of a female (not being the person to be arrested) who, according to custom, does not appear in public, such person or police officer shall, before entering such apartment, give notice to such female that she is at liberty to withdraw and shall afford her every reasonable facility for withdrawing, and may then break open the apartment and enter it.

(3) Any police officer or other person authorised to make an arrest may break open any outer or inner door or window of any house or place in order to liberate himself or any other person who, having lawfully entered for the purpose of making an arrest, is detained therein. 

Hindustani Andolan & Ors vs State Of Punjab & Ors on 24 November, 1983

ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (Crl.) No. 2989 of 1983.

(Under article 32 of the Constitution) R.L. Panjwani, Manoj Saxena and R.D. Upadhaya for the petitioners.

The Order of the Court was delivered by CHANDRACHUD, C.J, The question raised in this petition is whether the Government can ask the police not to enter a place of worship, even if criminals are reported to be hiding or harboured therein. It is impossible and undesirable for any Court to issue a general writ of Mandamus to the effect that whenever a criminal is suspected to have taken shelter in a place of worship, the police must enter that place, regardless of the overall situation of law and order. Speaking generally, Courts cannot enforce law and order by issuing general directions without reference to specific instances. The Government has to assess, in the context of the prevailing conditions, the impact of the steps taken to enforce law and order. And, it is the executive which has to take a policy decision as regards the steps to be taken in a given situation, after taking into account the demands of the prevailing situation. We do not commend or suggest that the police should be silent spectators to wanton destruction of life but we cannot, as men of some little experience of law and life, commend that the police must enter places of worship forcibly. While enforcing law and order, the executive cannot be oblivious of the possibility that while solving one problem of law and order, others more acute than the one sought to be solved may arise. That is always a valid and relevant consideration.

With these observations, we dismiss this petition filed by two public-spirited organisations through their courageous convenor and secretary respectively.