CJP members Abhijeet Dipke, Ashutosh Ranka, and Saurav Das were ordered to be released by an executive magistrate
Placed under preventive arrest under BNSS sections 126 and 170, they were produced before special executive magistrate Sanghamitra at Delhi Cantonment police station. subject to statutory conditions, under Section 126, an executive magistrate can require a person likely to breach the peace to execute a bond to maintain peace for up to one year While Section 170 empowers police to arrest without a warrant to prevent a cognisable offence. Police could give no grounds of further detention, so they were released.
Their counsel Soutik Banerjee, said, “This was an arrest under preventive detention provisions… The ground was that, as per police, these persons could ‘commit’ a crime if not detained. A procedural hearing took place where we sought release on personal bonds and without any deposit by surety,” he added. The three CJP members had been detained by Delhi Police from an aircraft at IGI Airport Saturday upon arriving from Mumbai to lead a protest against the CEC. Police had denied permission for the protest. Unlike judicial magistrates, the executive magistrates are officers appointed by the state govt to perform administrative and law and order duties.
On Saturday, a Delhi court dismissed a plea by CJP legal affairs head Ratna Singh seeking registration of an FIR against police personnel over her alleged wrongful confinement and a direction for her immediate release.