TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (8) TMI 1703
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....alleges that on 25.01.2025, the accused was found in possession of 26.92 Kg of ganja from platform No.3 of Ernakulam Junction Railway Station and thereby committed the offences alleged. Petitioner has been in custody since 26.01.2025. 4. I have heard Adv. Fathima Sulfath N.B., on behalf of the petitioner and Sri. R. Vinu Raj, the learned Special Public Prosecutor on behalf of the respondents. Considering the importance of the question involved, and on noticing the commitment with which two law interns were watching the proceedings, this Court deemed it fit to seek their assistance. The two interns who were present in Court expressed their willingness and hence this Court appointed Ms. Nikhina Thomas and Ms. Neha Babu, second year students of Ramaiah College, Bengaluru, as Amici Curiae to assist the Court. 5. Smt. Fathima Sulfath N.B., the learned counsel for the petitioner, contended that petitioner's arrest, pursuant to the alleged detection of possession of contraband, is vitiated on account of the failure to communicate the grounds for arrest as contemplated by law. Apart from the above, the learned counsel submitted that petitioner was detained in custody beyond the perio....
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....eed to balance the individual liberties with the requirement of criminal investigation. Law has to apply equally for all. No man is above the law and none are below it either. Even the most notorious criminal is entitled to be treated with fairness and justice. Fundamental rights have been regarded as the pride of our Constitution and Article 21 as its soul. Equal protection of laws is so embedded in our system of criminal jurisprudence that whenever there is an infraction of the law leading to deprivation or curtailment of liberty, courts have stepped in to the aid of the deprived, much to the chagrin of those wielding power. 9. In Joginder Kumar v. State of U.P. and Others [(1994) 4 SCC 260], the Supreme Court noted that the quality of a nation's civilization can be largely measured by the methods it uses in the enforcement of criminal law. After referring to the Third Report of the National Police Commission, the Court observed that the power of arrest has been identified as one of the chief sources of corruption in the police and further that the existence of power to arrest is one thing while the justification for its exercise is quite another and the arrest should not ....
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....t while considering the question as to when is a person in custody within the meaning of S. 439 Cr.P.C., had noted that a person can be said to be in custody "When he is in duress either because he is held by the investigating agency or other police or allied authority or is under the control of the court having been remanded by judicial order, or having offered himself to the court's jurisdiction and submitted to its orders by physical presence." The Court held that he who is in the physical hold of an officer with coercive power is in custody for the purpose of S.439 as the law has taken control of the person. The observations of the Court being illuminating are worth reproduction and is as follows: "The equivocatory quibblings and hide and seek niceties sometimes heard in court that the police have taken a man into informal custody but not arrested him, have detained him for interrogation but not taken him into formal custody and other like terminological dubieties are unfair evasions of the straightforwardness of the law." . 14. Earlier, in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Deoman Upadhyaya [AIR 1960 SC 1125], a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had observe....
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.... be an intent to arrest under the authority, accompanied by seizure or detention of the person in the manner known to law, which is so understood by the person arrested." 17. The etymological derivation of the word 'arrest' is from the French term 'Arreter' meaning 'to stop or stay'. The term denotes a restraint of the person. Thus, whenever there is a complete restraint on the freedom of movement or a person is held against his interests in curtailment of his liberty by a person in authority, it can be said that the said person is under arrest. Actual restraint either by word or action or conduct would suffice. When a person is prevented by a person in authority from engaging in his activities at his free will the former can be said to have been arrested. The failure, refusal or omission to record an arrest or continuation of an interrogation for prolonged periods without recording arrest, shall not preclude those periods of curtailed liberty as constituting arrest. 18. The Constitution mandates that the person arrested be produced before the nearest Magistrate within twenty-four hours of the arrest and other than the time necessary to reach the court....