Police pay ‘scant regard’ to arrest safeguards, scorn judgments enforcing fundamental rights, says Allahabad HC

The court further directed the sessions judge of Sambhal to ensure that magistrates under his administrative control do not authorise police or judicial remand mechanically using printed proformas

The Allahabad high court has strongly criticised the police’s approach to constitutional safeguards, observing that officers have “traditionally paid scant regard” to the requirements of Article 22(1) of the Constitution. This article makes it mandatory for police to inform a detainee of the grounds of arrest; however, the court noted that police often fail to appreciate the significance of fundamental rights when exercising their power to arrest.

Allahabad high court (File)

The bench, comprising justice JJ Munir and justice Tarun Saxena, allowed a petition filed by one Rakesh, quashed the remand order against him, and directed that the petitioner be released upon furnishing a bond, as he had not been provided the grounds for his arrest as required by law.

The court further directed the sessions judge of Sambhal to ensure that magistrates under his administrative control do not authorise police or judicial remand mechanically using printed proformas. They must not remand an accused person without first ascertaining that the constitutional requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest has been fully complied with.

The court stated that police officers often fail to understand that there are two sides to every allegation regarding an offence, remaining partisan by considering only one side. It further observed that police training, when bereft of legal knowledge, deprives officers of the “forensic eye” needed to understand legal implications, resulting in a continuing “tug of war” between judicial orders safeguarding individual liberty and “dogged breaches by the police.”

“This arrest memo does not carry grounds of arrest, but reasons for arrest. The reasons have already been distinguished from grounds by the Supreme Court in the Prabir Purkayastha case. There is absolutely no ground mentioned in the memo of arrest,” the court observed in its judgment dated July 27.

As a result, the bench noted, the petitioner was prevented from exercising his rights under Article 22(1) because he was never informed of the precise grounds and facts upon which he had been taken into custody.

Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India provides fundamental safeguards, stating that no arrested person can be detained without being informed of the grounds of arrest as soon as possible, nor can they be denied the right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of their choice.