LAST week, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and N. Kotiswar Singh handed down an important decision regarding the furnishing of grounds of arrest to accused.
The Bench observed that informing the detained person of the grounds of arrest is not a formality but a mandatory constitutional requirement.It emphasized that the grounds of arrest must be provided to the arrested person in such a manner as to sufficiently convey knowledge of the basic facts constituting the grounds to the arrested person effectively, in the language that they understand.
Facts of the case
The facts of the case are as follows. One Vihaan Kumar was arrested in connection with a first information report (FIR) lodged on March 25, 2023, for the offences under Sections 409,420, 467, 468 and 471 read with Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (‘IPC’).
According to Kumar, he was arrested on June 10, 2024, at about 10.30 a.m. at his office premises in Gurugram, Haryana. On June 11, 2024, at 3:30 p.m, he was produced before the Judicial Magistrate(in charge). Since Kumar was not produced before the magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest, he alleged the violation of Article 22(2) of the Constitution, which mandates that, "every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate."
A similar requirement is incorporated in Section 57 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973. The State of Haryana, however, claimed that Kumar was arrested on June 10, 2024, at 6:00 p.m, and thus Article 22(2) was complied with.
Kumar further alleged that neither in the remand report nor in the order dated June 11, 2024, passed by the Magistrate, the time of arrest was mentioned.
