Workers protesting for higher wages spent over 50 days in jail on average until courts intervened

Why in the News

An investigation into 222 bail orders arising from the April 2026 wage protests by factory workers in Noida found that relief was granted in 188 of them, or 84 per cent, after courts repeatedly held that mere presence in a protesting crowd is not evidence of criminal intent. The average protester nonetheless spent 53 days in custody before that relief arrived. Two protests over comparable grievances in the same month produced opposite outcomes, one ending in a ministerial resignation and an assurance of no prosecution, the other in mass arrests and preventive detention.

What is the National Security Act, 1980?

1. What it is: A central preventive detention law that allows the State to detain a person to prevent an apprehended act, without trial and without a criminal charge being proved.
2. The period it permits: It allows detention for up to one year without trial.
3. Who orders it: A district magistrate, a commissioner of police or the State government may pass the detention order, and the State government must confirm it.
4. Its use in this case: Two of those arrested in the Noida protests were booked under the Act, a former journalist and a university graduate, and their pleas are pending before the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court respectively.

What is the current status of the right to protest in India?

1. A derived right, not an enumerated one: The right to protest is not written into the Constitution as a separate right, it is derived from the freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) and the freedom to assemble peaceably and without arms under Article 19(1)(b).
2. The qualification on it: Both freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order and the sovereignty and integrity of India.
3. The peaceful assembly limit: Protection extends only to assembly that is peaceable and unarmed, so the State may act against an assembly once it turns violent.
4. The bail standard courts applied here: Judges in these cases held that mere presence at a protest is not evidence to deny bail, that the absence of specific evidence outweighs the gravity of the charges, and that ordinary workers cannot be equated with those found organising or instigating violence.
5. Preventive detention sits alongside it: A person may be detained without trial under a preventive detention law even where no offence has been proved, which is the route taken against two of the accused here.

Constitutional Provisions Related to Protest, Liberty and Preventive Detention

1. Article 19(1)(a): Guarantees freedom of speech and expression, from which the right to protest is derived.
2. Article 19(1)(b): Guarantees the right to assemble peaceably and without arms.
3. Article 19(1)(c): Guarantees the right to form associations or unions, the basis of the right to organise labour.
4. Article 19(2) and 19(3): Permit reasonable restrictions on speech and on assembly in the interests of public order.
5. Article 21: Guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law, read to require a just, fair and reasonable procedure.
6. Article 22(1) and 22(2): Guarantee an arrested person the right to be informed of the grounds of arrest, to consult a legal practitioner, and to be produced before a magistrate within twenty four hours.
7. Article 22(3): Expressly withdraws those protections from a person detained under a preventive detention law.
8. Article 22(4) and 22(5): Cap preventive detention at three months unless an Advisory Board of persons qualified to be High Court judges reports sufficient cause, and require the grounds of detention to be communicated to the detainee.
9. Entry 9, Union List and Entry 3, Concurrent List: Place preventive detention connected with defence and foreign affairs with the Union, and preventive detention for reasons connected with State security and the maintenance of public order on the Concurrent List.
10. Article 23: Prohibits forced labour, the constitutional anchor of minimum wage jurisprudence.
11. Article 43: Directs the State to secure a living wage and conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life, as a Directive Principle.

What triggered the Noida wage protests?

1. Rising fuel costs: Rising liquefied petroleum gas cylinder prices amid the West Asia crisis, with workers additionally citing black market prices for cylinders.
2. A rumour about the Labour Codes: WhatsApp rumours in late March that the new Labour Codes would raise minimum wages.
3. A neighbouring wage settlement: Wage hike protests in Haryana's Manesar, which produced a settlement that workers in Noida then demanded for themselves.
4. The underlying grievances: Workers cited unrealistic work targets, the absence of social security benefits such as provident fund, and hiring on a temporary basis through contractors.
5. Working hours in practice: Workers said they were officially on eight hour shifts but routinely worked ten to twelve hours with few breaks, with safety, especially for women, a further concern.

What did the wage revisions actually deliver?

1. The Haryana settlement: After the Manesar protests, the State government announced a 35 per cent hike in minimum monthly wages on 9 April, backdated to 1 April.
2. The Haryana figures: Rs 15,220.71 for unskilled workers and Rs 19,425.85 for highly skilled workers.
3. The effect on Noida: The Haryana announcement intensified the Noida protests, which turned violent as workers and activists took to the streets.
4. The Uttar Pradesh interim hike: Calm returned after the State announced its own interim revision on 14 April, raising unskilled wages from Rs 11,313 to Rs 13,690 and skilled wages from Rs 13,940 to Rs 16,868 in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad.
5. The parallel warning: Authorities in Noida warned contractors that complaints against them would be dealt with harshly.

What did the bail orders across the seven FIRs establish?

1. First Information Report 149 of 2026, Noida Phase III: 31 granted bail and 6 denied, on an allegation that 300 to 400 accused entered an electronics firm's premises in Sector 67 on 13 April carrying lathis, sticks, bricks, stones and deadly weapons and extended threats to kill. The sessions court held that the mere fact that an accused was part of the crowd cannot by itself lead to the conclusion that he possessed the same grave criminal intent, and found that the prosecution had described the crowd's acts in a collective manner without specifying individual roles. Fourteen further grants came from the High Court.
2. First Information Report 151 of 2026, Noida Phase III: 37 granted bail, on an allegation of stone pelting with intent to cause death and vandalism of security gates, closed circuit television cameras, glass structures and office property. The prosecution relied on an informant's statement, an inspection of the site and closed circuit television footage, and the court found that no such footage or electronic record had been placed on record depicting the accused in any violent activity.
3. First Information Report 163 of 2026, Noida Phase II: 3 granted bail and 10 denied, arising from protests by workers of three garment and apparel firms between 10 and 11 April. Bail went to three who had remained in judicial custody for a long period once the chargesheet was filed, and was refused to ten on prima facie allegations of an active conspiratorial role, including the creation of WhatsApp groups in the names of companies and the recovery of banners, posters and pamphlets from their residences.
4. First Information Report 165 of 2026, Noida Phase II: 29 granted bail and 6 denied, on an allegation that 450 to 500 workers assembled in Sector 84 and elsewhere on 13 April over wages, overtime and bonuses, and that the protest turned violent between 8.30 am and 9.30 pm. The prosecution cited independent witnesses including a water vendor, a chowmein cart owner and a rickshaw puller, and the court found it was not clear how they were previously acquainted with or able to identify the accused, adding that the presence of an accused at a labourers' protest is not unnatural. Six further grants came from the High Court.
5. First Information Report 169 of 2026, Noida Phase II: 26 granted bail and 1 denied, on an allegation that garment exporter employees blocked gates, restrained workers from entering and threatened vandalism and arson from 10 April. The court noted the First Information Report was lodged nearly ten days after the incident with several accused not named in it and no explanation for the delay, and that the complaint reflected no actual incident of arson or injuries. The single refusal rested on closed circuit television footage establishing a specific role.
6. First Information Report 172 of 2026, Noida Phase I: 21 granted bail and 7 denied, on an allegation that workers of an auto components manufacturer blocked a public road, damaged government and company property and injured police personnel. The court held that the only allegation was presence in the protesting crowd, that the role of every person in a crowd cannot be treated the same, and that mere presence does not by itself make every accused equally liable where no specific act is attributed.
7. First Information Report 164 of 2026, Noida Phase II: 41 granted bail and 4 denied, with 39 of the 41 grants coming from the Allahabad High Court, which applied a broad standard resting on the facts and circumstances of the case, the evidence on record and grounds of parity.

On what grounds was bail refused?

1. The common accusation: Those denied relief face an alleged role in the conspiracy rather than an alleged act at the protest.
2. Administering WhatsApp groups: Courts cited data showing certain accused were administrators of a WhatsApp group alleged to have been created to facilitate the commission of violence.
3. Mobilisation from outside: Bail was refused to accused said to have called others to Noida for the protests or to have run groups to mobilise and instigate workers.
4. Absence of an employment link: One court held that persons with no direct employment relationship with the companies concerned stand on a different footing from the companies' own workers.
5. Statements of co accused: In one case bail was refused on the statements of co accused despite the defence pointing to the absence of prior criminal antecedents.
6. Preventive detention instead of bail: On 13 May, nearly a month after the protests turned violent, the State invoked the National Security Act, 1980 against a 60 year old former journalist from Lucknow and a 25 year old Delhi University graduate, taking both outside the bail process altogether.
7. The material cited in the detention orders: The grounds included membership of a political organisation, writing described as inciting a new generation to join a rebel organisation, joining a library run by a co accused, the recovery of a book on Indian revolutionaries described as a controversial work of literature, and participation in earlier protests over citizenship registration and over Gaza. One police report used the term andolanjeevi.

What did the arrests cost the workers and their families?

1. Time in custody: Across the 106 arrests carrying substantive allegations, ranging from rioting and arson to attempt to murder, the average period a protester spent in custody was 53 days.
2. Arrest away from any protest: A 34 year old daily wage worker was picked up from Labour Chowk on 14 April while looking for work, and was released on bail 40 days later.
3. Cost of the process itself: That worker's family, migrants from Bihar, spent nearly Rs 50,000 on jail and court visits alone, and his mother lost her factory job over the frequency of those visits.
4. The scale of borrowing: The families of two young men aged 20 and 18 from Sitamarhi spent almost Rs 3 lakh between them on bail, and sought relatives' help for surety bonds.
5. Length of detention for the young: One of those two completed three months and a day in jail, and was released two days after the other because of a documentation problem.
6. The lasting effect: A 19 year old picked up on 14 April after stepping out of his workplace for a meal was released on 18 May, and reports that his parents now call six times a day fearing he will be picked up again.

Why did two protests over comparable grievances end so differently?

1. The first outcome: The Jantar Mantar protest demanding a leak proof examination system ended with the Union Education Minister's resignation and an assurance by the Centre and the States that the police would pursue no case against the protesters.
2. The second outcome: The week long protest beginning 10 April by factory workers in Noida demanding higher wages drew a police crackdown, with up to 200 people taken into custody.
3. The distinction was not the demand: Both protests raised a grievance against a State failure, one over examination integrity and the other over the statutory minimum wage.
4. The distinction was the protester: The workers were largely contract hires, migrants and daily wagers with no institutional voice, which is what left them dependent on the courts for relief the other protesters received by executive assurance.
5. The State conceded the demand anyway: Uttar Pradesh raised wages on 14 April, so the substance of the workers' claim was accepted while the workers themselves remained in custody.
6. The relief was judicial, not political: Courts granted relief in 84 per cent of the bail pleas, which means the correction came from the judiciary rather than from the executive that had made the arrests.

Major debates surrounding preventive detention and the right to protest

1. Preventive detention inside a rights guaranteeing Constitution: India is among the few democracies to carry preventive detention in the Constitution itself, and Article 22(3) removes the very safeguards Article 22(1) and 22(2) create for an arrested person.
2. Public order against ordinary law and order: Preventive detention is available only for a threat to public order, and the line between a law and order breach and a public order breach determines whether the ordinary criminal process or detention without trial applies.
3. Collective liability against individual act: The prosecution treats the crowd as the accused while the courts require a specific act attributed to a named individual, and the bail record here shows the two standards producing opposite results.
4. Bail as the rule and jail as the exception: The settled principle collides with a practice in which the average protester spent 53 days in custody before a court applied it.
5. Speech and association as evidence: Books read, library membership, publishing and participation in earlier protests were cited in the detention grounds, which raises whether protected expression can supply the material for a preventive order.
6. Advisory Board review against judicial review: Preventive detention is reviewed by an Advisory Board rather than by a trial, so the detenu's remedy is a writ petition, which is slower than a bail application.
7. The right to strike: Indian law recognises no fundamental right to strike, so a wage agitation has no protected status independent of the general freedom of assembly.

Challenges to protecting the right to protest

1. Procedure as punishment: Even where charges fail, the time spent in custody before bail is itself the penalty. e.g. the 53 day average custody in these Noida cases against an 84 per cent eventual bail rate.
2. Collective First Information Reports: Naming 300 to 500 unidentified persons in a single complaint makes individual defence impossible and shifts the burden onto the accused. e.g. First Information Report 149 of 2026, where the sessions court found the prosecution had described the crowd's acts in a collective manner without specifying individual roles.
3. Preventive detention bypasses bail entirely: Once a detention order is passed, the bail jurisprudence stops applying and the detenu must approach a constitutional court. e.g. the two National Security Act, 1980 detentions of 13 May 2026, whose pleas remain pending before the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court.
4. Cost of accessing justice: Surety bonds, travel, lawyers and jail visits impoverish families whose original grievance was a wage below subsistence. e.g. one family spending nearly Rs 50,000 on visits and another almost Rs 3 lakh on two sons.
5. Contract hiring removes institutional protection: Workers hired through contractors have no recognised union and no employer of record to negotiate on their behalf. e.g. courts here treated persons with no direct employer employee relationship with the companies as standing on a different footing when refusing bail.
6. Delay in registering complaints: Complaints filed days after the event allow names to be added without contemporaneous evidence. e.g. First Information Report 169 of 2026, lodged nearly ten days after the incident with several accused not named in it.
7. Unequal executive response: The executive can extend an assurance of no prosecution to one set of protesters and none to another, with no standard governing the choice. e.g. the Jantar Mantar assurance against the Noida crackdown in the same month.
8. Absence of accountability for wrongful arrest: No consequence attaches to an investigating agency whose case collapses at the bail stage. e.g. senior police officers linked to this investigation declined comment on the findings.

Conclusion

The Noida record shows a criminal process in which the crowd, rather than a named individual with a proved act, was treated as the accused, and in which the correction came from the courts rather than from the agency that made the arrests. The State conceded the wage demand on 14 April while the workers who raised it remained in custody for weeks longer, so the substance of the grievance was accepted without any consequence for the arrests. The pending challenges to the two National Security Act, 1980 detentions, before the Supreme Court and the Allahabad High Court respectively, are the next milestone in the matter.

What is Preventive Detention?

1. About: Preventive detention is the confinement of a person to prevent an apprehended future act, rather than to punish a proved past offence, and it therefore involves no charge, trial or conviction.
2. Rationale: It exists to allow the State to act on an anticipated threat to public order or State security in advance of the harm, on the reasoning that a completed offence would be too late to prevent.
3. Punitive detention distinguished: Punitive detention follows conviction after a trial, preventive detention precedes any trial and rests on the subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority.
4. The constitutional cap: Detention beyond three months requires an Advisory Board of persons qualified to be High Court judges to report sufficient cause, under Article 22(4).
5. The grounds requirement: The authority must communicate the grounds of detention to the detainee and afford the earliest opportunity to make a representation, under Article 22(5).
6. The judicial standard: Because the satisfaction is subjective, courts review the procedure and the relevance of the material rather than the sufficiency of the grounds themselves.

Key Concerns Regarding Preventive Detention

1. Constitutional safeguards expressly withdrawn: Article 22(3) removes the right to be informed of grounds of arrest, to counsel and to production before a magistrate for a preventively detained person.
2. No requirement to prove an offence: Detention rests on apprehension rather than evidence of a committed act, so the ordinary standard of proof never applies.
3. Executive rather than judicial review: An Advisory Board, not a trial court, examines the detention, and the detenu's only judicial route is a writ petition.
4. Vague standards for public order: The distinction between a law and order breach and a public order breach is not statutorily defined, so classification is a matter of executive judgment.
5. Successive detention orders: A fresh order can follow the revocation of an earlier one, extending confinement beyond the period any single order permits.
6. Use against speech and association: Writing, publishing, reading and participating in earlier protests have been cited as material in detention grounds, converting protected expression into evidence of apprehended threat.

Laws and Rules Governing Preventive Detention and Public Order in India

1. Preventive Detention Act, 1950: The first post independence preventive detention statute, tested in A.K. Gopalan versus State of Madras in 1950, and allowed to lapse in 1969.
2. Maintenance of Internal Security Act, 1971: Provided for preventive detention on internal security grounds and was repealed in 1978.
3. Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974: Permits preventive detention in smuggling and foreign exchange matters, and remains in force.
4. National Security Act, 1980: Permits detention for up to one year to prevent a person from acting prejudicially to the defence of India, the security of the State, relations with foreign powers, the maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community.
5. Detention orders may be passed by a district magistrate, a commissioner of police or the State government, and must be confirmed by the State government.
6. Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988: Provides preventive detention in narcotics cases.
7. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967: Governs terrorist and unlawful association offences, with restrictive bail conditions in place of ordinary bail jurisprudence.
8. Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023: Replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and carries the preventive powers of the police and the magistracy, including the dispersal of unlawful assemblies.
9. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: Carries the substantive offences of rioting, unlawful assembly, mischief and criminal conspiracy on which protest prosecutions are built.
10. State security legislation: Several States operate their own public safety or goonda acts providing for preventive detention on locally defined grounds.

Back2Basics: The Four Labour Codes

1. What they are: Four consolidated central statutes that subsume 29 earlier central labour laws into a single framework covering wages, industrial relations, social security and workplace safety.
2. Code on Wages, 2019: Merges four laws including the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, and provides for a statutory floor wage set by the Centre below which no State may fix its minimum wage.
3. Industrial Relations Code, 2020: Merges three laws on trade unions, standing orders and industrial disputes, and raises the threshold for prior government permission for retrenchment and closure to establishments with 300 or more workers.
4. Code on Social Security, 2020: Merges nine laws on provident fund, gratuity, maternity benefit and employees' state insurance, and for the first time brings gig and platform workers within the definition of beneficiaries.
5. Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020: Merges 13 laws on factories, contract labour, migrant workmen and specific hazardous sectors.
6. Coverage of minimum wages: The Code on Wages, 2019 extends minimum wage entitlement to all employees in both organised and unorganised sectors, whereas the earlier law applied only to scheduled employments.
7. Why they figure here: A rumour in late March 2026 that the Codes would raise minimum wages was one of the three stated triggers of the Noida protests.

Way Forward

1. Require individualised allegations in a First Information Report: A complaint naming an unascertained crowd should be treated as insufficient to sustain custody absent a specific act attributed to a named person.
2. Apply a statutory bail timeline in protest cases: A fixed outer limit for the first bail hearing would prevent the process itself becoming the punishment, as the 53 day average shows it did.
3. Restrict preventive detention to defined public order threats: A statutory definition distinguishing a law and order breach from a public order breach would narrow the discretion the National Security Act, 1980 currently leaves to the detaining authority.
4. Bar expression and association as sole detention grounds: Books read, publications authored and participation in earlier lawful protests should not by themselves constitute material for a preventive order.
5. Enforce the Code on Wages, 2019 floor wage: Timely notification and revision of minimum wages removes the grievance that produced the agitation, since Uttar Pradesh conceded the revision within four days of the protests.
6. Regulate contract hiring: Registration of contractors and a statutory grievance route for contract workers gives them a channel short of street protest, addressing the absence of any union or employer of record.
7. Institutionalise a protest response protocol: A published standard for how the police respond to a peaceful assembly, applied uniformly, would end the disparity between the assurance given at Jantar Mantar and the crackdown at Noida.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2023] Consider the following statements: 1. According to the Constitution of India, the Central Government has a duty to protect States from internal disturbances. 2. The Constitution of India exempts the States from providing legal counsel to person being held for preventive detention 3. According to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002, confession of the accused before the police cannot be used as evidence. How many of the above statements are correct? (a) Only one (b) Only two (c) All three (d) None Answer: (a)”