The Allahabad High Court recently ordered release of an accused who was formally arrested by the police on September 16 only after keeping him under illegal detention for 31 hours [Ravi Chaurasiya And Another v State of UP and 4 others]

A bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdeva found that the police formally arrested the accused Ravi Chaurasiya only after his mother approached the High Court with a habeas corpus petition. 

Prior to that, he was being kept in illegal detention.

“The police cannot be permitted to legitimize an arrest, where it was subsequent to an act of unlawful detention. The subsequent arrest memo and the remand does not legitimize the initial unlawful detention of the corpus. Therefore, where the initial action of unlawful detention itself was violative of the right of the corpus under Article 22, the same cannot be set right by a subsequent action of the police by formally arresting the corpus on 16.09.2026 at 10.45 am,” the Court ruled.

The Court rejected the police claim that they forgot to make an entry in the General Diary for Chaurasiya's custody for more than 24 hours. It noted that he was arrested for being the purchaser of a property belonging to a gangster.

The Court directed Chaurasiya's release and also ordered the Commissioner of Prayagraj to conduct an inquiry into the matter, particularly, the conduct of the Station House Officer (SHO).  

“This Court records its displeasure with regard to the conduct of the S.H.O. of Police Station Soraon. If, in the inquiry conducted against the deponent, the Commissioner is satisfied that there has been negligence on his part, in such an eventuality, the displeasure which is recorded in this order, be entered in his service record,” it directed.

While considering Chaurasiya’s plea to release him in the case, the Court examined the doctrine of ‘fruit of poisonous tree’ in the context of his illegal detention, which was subsequently formalised by producing him before a magistrate. 

Fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, which originated in the United States of America, is a doctrine which prohibits the appreciation of any evidence gathered unlawfully.

“In the case under judgment, this Court examined the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine, not in the context of the law of evidence, but in its application to constitutional law, with specific reference to civil liberties protected under Part III of the Constitution of India. This doctrine is applicable to the law relating to detention and arrest,” the Court said.

It added that where the subsequent arrest follows an unlawful detention of a person, the arrest as well as the proceedings of remand by the judicial magistrate are rendered unlawful as the genesis leading to the arrest is the unlawful detention of the accused that violate his right under Article 22. 

The Court went onto hold that when the police detention itself is violative of Articles 21 and 22, the subsequent arrest, even where valid grounds of arrest are provided and the remand proceedings before the magistrate may otherwise appear legitimate, all stand vitiated by the application of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.

Chaurasiya’s mother had approached the High Court on September 15 to know the whereabouts of her son. He was formally arrested a day later by the police and remanded to judicial custody by a magistrate.  

In response to the petition, Deen Dayal Singh, the SHO of Police Station Soraon, made a clear admission that though Chaurasiya was taken into custody at 03:40 am on September 15, it was not entered into the General Diary.

The record revealed that he was formally arrested only on September 16 at 10.45 am.

In judgment passed on September 28, the Court observed that the formal arrest was made to escape liability of an illegal detention after coming to know about the habeas petition filed by his mother.

“This Court is unable to accept that the omission to show that the corpus was in their custody was merely an inadvertent mistake, and instead was a conscious omission by the Respondent to escape the charge of illegally detaining the corpus,” the Court said.

The Court also found that the accused was never informed about his right to have legal advice of an advocate of his choice. Though the Court noted that this right becomes available only upon a formal arrest, the Court added,

“This Court cannot allow a process whereby the police in order to escape the rigors of the same, does not arrest an accused/suspect, calls him to police station, interrogates him for 5-6 hours, and on the basis of self-incriminatory statements of the suspect makes him an accused because that would be violative of his right against self-incrimination, which was made on account of the absence of a counsel.”

The Court observed that it is the duty of the police to inform a person taken into custody – even if not formally arrested – that he has right to have a counsel of his choice present in the police station during interrogation in accordance with Section 38 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). 

“Failure to do so, would vitiate all information given by the said suspect, especially self-incriminatory statements, which even otherwise given to a police officer are not relevant under the Evidence Act,” the Court said.

Considering the circumstances of his arrest, the Court allowed the habeas corpus petition and ordered the State to pay ₹30,000 as compensation to Chaurasiya.

While ordering Chaurasiya’s release, the Court said his prospective arrest can only be carried out upon a warrant of arrest issued by the magistrate concerned. 

“Under the circumstances, this Court having held the initial detention of the corpus as unlawful, applying the doctrine of the fruit of the poisonous tree in the context hereinabove, directs that he be released forthwith, if not wanted in any other case,” it ordered.

Senior Advocate Imran Ullah with Advocate Devesh Kumar Shukla represented the petitioner. 

[Read Order]