Allahabad High Court orders FIR against cop who belatedly added reasons of arrest to prevent release of accused

The Allahabad High Court has ordered that a criminal case be registered against a police officer for subsequently adding the 'reasons for arrest' to an arrest memo to prevent the accused from being released by the magistrate [Mohd. Yaseen v State of UP and 3 Others]

A bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev found that the reasons of arrest were not supplied to the accused at the time of arrest but were subsequently inserted by the investigating officer in the papers placed before the remand magistrate and trial court.

The Court observed that an offence relating to "false evidence and offence against public justice" appears to have been committed by the investigating officer.

"This Court deprecates such action on the part of the police for fabricating evidence only in order to satisfy the reasons for arrest and the memo of arrest which were never given to the petitioner and to deny him the relief in the remand proceedings and bail proceedings," the bench said.

The Court directed the Superintendent of Police of Farrukhabad to immediately get a first information report (FIR) registered against the investigating officer of this case and place a compliance report before the Court within a period of seven days.

The case will be heard next on November 16.

The Court passed the direction in a habeas corpus petition moved by one Mohd. Yaseen who was arrested by the police on September 14 after he had gone to the police station a day earlier to join the investigation in a suicide case. It was argued before the Court that the police failed to provide him the reasons for arrest.

In the order passed on November 4, the Court found that the arrest only mentioned Section 108 (abetment of suicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

"The remaining particulars that a case has been registered and that evidence has emerged indicating that the deceased committed suicide on account of the harassment meted out to her by the petitioner, are conspicuously absent from the copy furnished to the petitioner," the bench noted.

Concluding that the reasons for arrest and the grounds of arrest were not communicated in compliance with the law laid down by the Supreme Court, the Court declared Yaseen's arrest illegal and ordered his release.

Advocate Satya Dheer Singh Jadaun represented the petitioner.

[Read Order]