India, July 23 -- The allegations of police brutality during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) demonstrations in Delhi have once again brought into focus the constitutional and legal question - how much force can the police legally use to disperse a protest?

While Indian law empowers the police to maintain public order, courts have repeatedly emphasised that those powers are bound by the Constitution and the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality.

But the legal framework remains fragmented.

Even as the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) confers the power to disperse unlawful assemblies, the operational protocols for crowd control - including lathi-charge, use of tear gas, recording of operations and deployment proce...