Summary
On August 20, 2026, in Shiv Pratap Singh v. State of U.P. and Himanshu Srivastava v. State of U.P., Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran held that proceedings under the UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 cannot survive.
The Act defines who a gangster is, but it leaves the decision on who falls within that definition to executive rules and police gang charts and it never creates a substantive offence. The Court held that creating a crime is a legislative function that cannot be delegated.
It relied on the principle of legality behind Article 20(1). A Hindu op-ed by former Delhi University law professor B.B. Pande has now revisited the ruling as a restatement of the basic rules of criminalisation.
WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
An op-ed in The Hindu by B.B. Pande examined the Supreme Court's August 20, 2026 judgment (2026 INSC 894), which declared the 1986 UP Gangsters Act "still-born." The Court found that under the Act, a person's status as a gangster was decided through rules and executive gang charts, which left the trial judge nothing to do except punish.
The ruling restates that only the legislature can define a crime. It will also shape how every state's special anti-crime law is drafted and challenged.
Standard News
"Law in Force" Never Said Who Makes It. The Court Just Did. **Article
20(1)** says a person can be convicted only for violating a "law in force" at the time of the act and cannot be given a penalty greater than that law prescribed. The text does not say who must make that law: Parliament, a state legislature or an officer drafting rules under a statute.
In Shiv Pratap Singh v. State of U.P., the Supreme Court filled that gap. It held that a crime can be created only by the legislature and the executive can never do it.
The rule as written The principle behind Article 20(1) is legality, captured in two maxims: nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law) and nulla poena sine lege (no punishment without law). The Court tested the UP Act against the General Clauses Act, which defines an "offence" as an act or omission made punishable by law. By that test the 1986 Act failed. It defines a "gangster," but it never makes any specific act or omission punishable. In the Court's words, it could not find "any offence having been created."
The rule as practised In practice, the Act's machinery ran on subordinate instruments.
Chapter 3 lays down how police prepare a "gang chart." Section 23 deals with special trial and bail provisions and the power to make rules. Whether someone was a "gangster" was settled by that executive process, which the Court called the "ipse dixit of the Executive": an assertion that carries weight only because of who makes it.
The Court concluded that once the gang chart existed, "nothing remains to be considered by the judicial officer but to punish." The trial was "a foregone conclusion." That shows the deeper defect. The Act punished a status, not an act.
A status assigned by police is not evidence of a crime and treating it as one takes the definition of the offence away from the legislature and the finding of guilt away from the judge.
Why this cannot be delegated Delegated legislation is ordinary and necessary.
Parliament cannot write every tariff schedule or safety standard itself. But since In re Delhi Laws Act (1951), Indian constitutional law has held that essential legislative functions cannot be delegated. Defining what conduct sends a person to prison is about as essential as legislation gets.
It needs public debate, recorded votes and political accountability and none of these exist when an offence is effectively created through rules and police files. As Packer put it, the power to define crime belongs "primarily and broadly to the legislature, secondarily and interstitially to the courts and to no one else." The Court also closed the usual justification: "however compelling or threatening the social menace," no penal law can license arbitrary action against the accused.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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The UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act was enacted in 1986.
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The Supreme Court delivered its judgment on August 20, 2026, citation 2026 INSC 894.
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The Bench was Justice J.B.
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Pardiwala and Justice K.
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Vinod Chandran.
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The companion case was Himanshu Srivastava v.
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State of U.P.
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Article 20(1) bars conviction except for violating a law in force at the time of the act and bars a penalty greater than the one that law prescribed.
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Nullum crimen sine lege means no crime without law.
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Nulla poena sine lege means no punishment without law.
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Herbert L.
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Packer wrote The Limits of the Criminal Sanction in 1968.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
The four structural defects that made the UP Act "still-born", from punishing a status instead of an act to the collapse of the judge's role into approving a gang chart.
How In re Delhi Laws Act (1951) and Article 20(1) together fill the constitutional gap about who may create a crime.
What the ruling gets right and where it leaves questions open, including the fate of pending cases and similar state anti-crime laws.
A short-term and long-term way forward for redrafting special criminal statutes without handing criminalisation to police.
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