Farhad Suri Moves Supreme Court, Seeks CBI Probe Into UP Police's Midnight Raid At His Delhi Residence

The Petition

In the Criminal Writ Petition filed through AoR Anoop Prakash Awasthi, the 68-year-old former civic chief and ex-Congress councillor states that in the intervening night of August 22-23, 2026, a police party led by ACP Suryabali Maurya of the Indirapuram police station in Ghaziabad, accompanied by five named Sub-Inspectors and roughly 30 other persons; several not in uniform, arrived at his residence at C-33A, East Nizamuddin, and demanded he come out.

The petition alleges the officers initially told Suri, who was home alone, that they were searching for a suspect in a "double-murder case." When he asked to see a search warrant, none was produced. He says he later learned the team was in fact acting on FIR No. 678/2026 registered at Indirapuram police station in connection with one Abhishek Upadhyay, a discrepancy the petition calls central to its case that the operation lacked lawful authority.

The plea further contends that the local Station House Officer at Hazrat Nizamuddin, when contacted by Suri at around 12:54 AM and 1:06 AM, said he knew only that a UP Police team had visited the nearby railway station and had no information about which premises were to be searched; a fact the petitioner says shows the raid proceeded without the interstate coordination and superior-officer authorisation required by law. The petition notes that a corresponding police diary entry was made only at 1:11:59 AM, after the operation had already begun.

What the Petition seeks

Suri's complaint to the DCP, South-East Delhi, filed the same day, sought registration of an FIR, identification of everyone who accompanied the raiding party, and tracing of call records and the roughly 10-15 vehicles involved, several bearing Uttar Pradesh registrations. According to the petition, that complaint was merely forwarded up the chain of command, from the Commissioner's office to the Special Commissioner (Law & Order) and then to the Joint Commissioner, Southern Range; without an FIR ever being registered. Suri also approached the National Human Rights Commission on August 25 and the UP Director General of Police on August 27, without, he says, any effective response.

The petition asks the Supreme Court to direct registration of an FIR against the named officers and unidentified accompanying persons, and to hand the probe to an independent agency, "preferably" the CBI. It also seeks binding, court-mandated guidelines for interstate police raids on residential premises, covering prior written intimation to local police, verification of search warrants, exclusion of unauthorised persons from raiding parties, and preservation of CCTV and electronic evidence; along with compensation for the alleged violation of his dignity and personal liberty.

An accompanying interim application seeks urgent directions to preserve CCTV footage, call detail records, GPS data and vehicle records from the night in question, warning that such material could otherwise be overwritten before any investigation begins.

The petition states that Suri has approached the Supreme Court directly rather than the Delhi High Court, citing the pendency of a related matter, Writ Petition No. 339/2026, already before the apex court, along with what it describes as the urgency of the circumstances.