No citizen can be arrested without being told the reason, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, stressing that such disclosure is a fundamental right of the accused.
Violation of this right would automatically entitle the accused to bail even if the relevant statute prescribes stringent bail conditions, the bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh said.
It said that failure to inform the accused of the grounds of their arrest vitiates the arrest. “Once the arrest is held to be vitiated, the person arrested cannot remain in custody even for a second,” the judgment said.
The bench issued several directives and guidelines that police and all courts across the country must follow while dealing with such vitiated arrests.
It said Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty), Article 22 (protection from arbitrary arrest and detention), Section 50 of the CrPC and its current avatar — Section 48 of the BNSS — all mandate that a person cannot bearrested without being told the grounds.
It recalled that a constitution bench had as far back as 1962 held, in Harikisan vs State of Maharashtra, that a person had a constitutional right to be told the reason for their arrest.
“If the grounds of arrest are not informed as soon as may be after the arrest, it would amount to a violation of the fundamental right of the arrestee guaranteed under Article 22(1),” Justice Oka, who authored the main judgment, observed.
“It will also amount to depriving the arrestee of his liberty. The reason is that, as provided in Article 21, no person can be deprived of his liberty except in accordance with the procedure established by law.”
The bench issued the following directions:
- Informing an arrested person of the grounds of the arrest is a mandatory requirement under Article 22(1) of the Constitution.
- This information must be communicated in language that the accused understands.
- If an arrested accused alleges non-compliance with Article 22(1), the burden will always be on the investigating officer or agency to prove compliance.
- Non-compliance with Article 22(1) and Article 21 are violations of the fundamental rights of the accused. Therefore, any remand order passed by a criminal court in such an instance will stand vitiated. However, it will not vitiate the investigation, chargesheet or the trial.
- When an arrested person is produced before a judicial magistrate for remand, the magistrate has a duty to ascertain compliance with Article 22(1) and other mandatory safeguards.
- When a violation of Article 22(1) is established, the court must immediately order the release of the accused even if there are statutory restrictions on the grant of bail.
The bench directed the Haryana government to release Vihaan Kumar, accused of cheating and other offences, holding the arrest unconstitutional as he hadn’t been informed of the grounds ofthe arrest.
It expressed shock and anguish that Kumar had after his arrest been handcuffed and chained to a hospital bed, which violated his fundamental right under Article 21.
But the bench clarified that its finding — that the arrest was vitiated — would not affect the merits of the pending case and the chargesheet.
It asked the Haryana government to direct its police to always comply with Article 22 and ensure they never again handcuff an accused while they are on a hospital bed, or tie them to the bed.