Bombay High Court: In a habeas corpus writ petition filed by the petitioner, where he was not informed the reasons for his arrest and was kept under custody for over a year, the Division Bench comprising of Ravindra V. Ghuge* and Gautam A. Ankhad, JJ, declared the arrest as illegal and directed the Sessions Court for his immediate release. The Court held that the police authorities have made completely false statement that the grounds of arrest were communicated in writing when no such record could be produced from the station diary, therefore, have committed gross violation of the rights of the petitioner.
Background
The deceased had two bulls, named Sarja and Sundar, which were kept in the custody of the deceased’s driver. Sarja originally belonged to Accused 1 and was purchased by the deceased for Rs. 61 lakhs, a year ago. These strong bulls were used for bullock racing. Accused 1- the employer of the petitioner, was desirous of purchasing Sundar, who was valued at Rs. 37 lakhs. Accused 1 paid Rs. 5 lakh as earnest money and the balance of Rs. 32 lakhs were agreed to be paid on 27-6-2024.
The dispute arose on 27-6-2024, when the deceased did not part with the bull Sundar, so, Accused 1 got infuriated and shot in the head of the deceased using his pistol. The petitioner was a witness of the crime and hence was interrogated by the police. During the interrogation the police found out that the Accused 3 had directed the petitioner to wash off the blood stains and clean the crime scene. Based on this statement, the police arrested the petitioner on 1-7-2024 on the charge of destruction of evidence.
Aggrieved by the fact that he was never intimidated of the reasons of arrest, in writing, the petitioner filed the writ petition before the present Court.
Analysis, Law and Decision
The Court noted that the petitioner was presented before the Magistrate on the day of the arrest itself and this fact was not disputed.
The Court observed that the Clause 8 of the Arrest Form where the reasons of arrest are required to be mentioned along with the date, time and place, was entirely left blank. Nothing in that clause was written to indicate that the petitioner was informed of his arrest. The police stated that petitioner was arrested because he washed away the blood stains on the directions of the accused, this amounted to conveying the reasons to the petitioner.
Furthermore, the Court pointed out that the affidavit filed by the police, states under oath that the reasons for arrest were written on a sheet of paper in his presence and that it was served on the petitioner but the station diary has no record to corroborate the fact that the reasons of arrest were given in writing to the petitioner. Additionally, it was claimed that the reasons were conveyed, by writing it in a piece of paper but again, there was no sheet of paper produced to back this statement rather the police had no record to such communication ever being made to the petitioner.
Based on these observations, the Court opined that the procedure laid down under Section 50 Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC), which talks about the right of arrested person to be informed of the grounds of arrest, was not followed, nor any record could be produced to show that the reasons of arrest were conveyed to the petitioner. Accordingly, the Court held the arrest as illegal and directed the Sessions Court for immediate release of petitioner for the jail.
[Ajit Kisan More v. State of Maharashtra, W. P. No. 3119 of 2025, decided on: 11-8-2025]
*Judgement authored by- Justice Ravindra V. Ghuge
Advocates who appeared in this case:
Advocate for the Petitioners- Niranjan Mundargi, Keral Mehta, Ranjeet M. Pawar, Bhargav S. Pataskar, Advocates
Advocate for the Respondents- S.V.Gavand, Addl. PP
Buy Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 HERE
