Unlawful assembly is a legal term to describe a group of people with the mutual intent of deliberate disturbance of the peace.
A definition of the offence of unlawful assembly appears in the Criminal Code Bill first prepared by Sir James Fitzjames Stephens in 1878 for the UK Parliament.
"[9] By the 19th century, unlawful assembly, a term used in English law, described a gathering of three or more people with intent to commit a crime by force, or to carry out a common purpose (whether lawful or unlawful), in such a manner or in such circumstances as would in the opinion of firm and rational men endanger the public peace or create fear of immediate danger to the tranquillity of the neighborhood.
[citation needed] A reform commission in 1879 believed that what underlay the first on-point legislation of 1328,[a] outlining when such a crime was recognised nationally (still to adjudged by or via a justice of the peace) was certain landed proprietors at loggerheads employing a band of violent armed retainers, above the traditional manorial bailiffs.
In 1882 it was ruled that, on balance, an unlawful assembly would need to be more than participants knowing beforehand of likely formal opposition and the mere prospect of a breach of the peace; by this date a quiltwork of cases had identified certain rights to orderly, lawful protest.
[e] Cementing the English Bill of Rights 1689 banning private armies, meetings for training or drilling, or military movements, were from 1820 unlawful assemblies unless held under lawful authority from the Crown, the Lord-lieutenant, or two justices of the peace.
[12] Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) of 2023 empowers an executive magistrate to issue orders in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger.
He was recognized for his initiative and awarded a gold medal by the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda for putting Section 144 in place and reducing overall crime.