Agra : A 25-year-old accused in an Etah Pocso case has been released after Allahabad high court (HC) found that police had failed to adequately explain grounds for his arrest, filling most relevant categories in the arrest memo merely with references to the case diary.
Referring to BNSS section 47, the court said an arrested person must be informed of full particulars of the grounds of arrest.
The two-judge HC bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev held that “police must disclose specific material and circumstances justifying arrest so that accused can understand action and seek bail, and that a judicial remand cannot cure an unlawful arrest”. It also said that the arrest memo “violated the legal safeguards governing arrests”. It said the relevant entries should have briefly described the evidence collected, the material required to be seized and the circumstances necessitating the arrest. HC further observed: “The power to arrest does not justify an arrest.”
Following the HC order, the special Pocso court in Etah allowed an application seeking his release and directed that a release warrant be issued to the district jail concerned without delay. The accused was then arrested and sent to judicial custody. After the Pocso court rejected their plea, his lawyer, Prashant Pundhir, moved HC challenging the arrest. HC found that police had filled only one of the six categories in the arrest memo section on grounds of arrest with a substantive entry. In the remaining ones, the investigating officer had merely stated that the relevant material was available in the case diary. The bench held that police had cited the statement of the complainant’s daughter as the reason for arrest, but had failed to adequately explain why arrest was necessary and what specific material justified the action.
The order was issued earlier this month, a copy of which was available Wednesday.
Initially, BNS sections 74 (outraging modesty of a woman), 316 (2) (criminal breach of trust), 352 (intentional insult) and 351 (1) (criminal Intimidation) were mentioned in the FIR and the Pocso Act provisions were later added during the investigation as the girl was found minor.