Non-Production Of Arrested Person Before Magistrate Within 24 Hrs Will Lead To Unscrupulous Tendencies: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court has emphasized that the legal mandate of production of arrested person before the Magistrate within 24 hours od detention cannot be violated as it will lead to unscrupulous tendencies.

The Court emphasized thus in a Writ Petition filed for issuing a Writ of Habeas Corpus to declare the arrest of an accused in a case registered under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), to be illegal.

A Division Bench of Justice M.S. Sonak and Justice Jitendra Jain enunciated, “Based upon the pre-arrest medical examination theory, the legal and constitutional mandate of production of the arrested person before the Magistrate within 24 hours of his detention cannot be violated. Such action on the part of the police officer is likely to lead to unscrupulous tendencies, where after a person is arrested, he is not produced before the Magistrate till the hospital authorities declare him fit. This will give wrong signals to society and to the public at large. In our view, such a pre-arrest medical examination theory can be fraught with mischief and highly deplorable.”

Senior Advocate Manoj Mohite appeared for the Petitioner/Accused while APP S.V. Gavand appeared for the Respondent/State.

Factual Background

In 2023, a complaint was lodged against the Petitioner, his wife, and other persons alleging cheating, forgery, and dishonestly obtaining an amount of Rs. 3,37,30,000/-. The Anticipatory Bail Application filed by the Petitioner before the High Court was rejected and in the meanwhile, chargesheet was filed by the police. The challenge by the Petitioner-accused to the rejection of anticipatory bail was dismissed by the Supreme Court. On October 25, 2024, a search was conducted by the Investigating Officer (IO) and the accused was taken into custody. Thereafter, he was taken to the Government Medical College for pre-arrest medical examination.

The doctors referred the accused to another government hospital, however, the police decided to take him to a private hospital for cardiac evaluation. On October 26, 2024, at midnight, he was admitted and was then discharged in the evening. Thereafter, he was taken back to the Government Medical College for obtaining a certificate of fitness for custody. At night, he was shown as formally arrested as per station diary entry, remand report, and affidavit-in-reply. On October 27, 2024 at 12:20 p.m., the accused was produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) and then the remand order was passed. Being aggrieved, the accused approached the High Court.

Reasoning

The High Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, observed, “… the justification sought to be made by the learned APP for not complying with the constitutional mandate on the pretext of pre-arrest medical examination is required to be rejected.”

The Court said that in any case, the present Petition can be treated as a Petition challenging that part of the bail order which has dealt with the effect of non-production of the Petitioner within 24 hours. It further noted that the Petitioner in the instant Petition has also challenged remand orders.

“Therefore, looked at from any angle, the contention raised by the learned APP that this Court should not entertain the present petition is required to be rejected. … In the present case also, there are allegations of cash transactions of substantial amounts. The learned senior counsel, in his usual fairness, did not oppose such directions being given in the present matter”, it added.

The Court, therefore, directed the Petitioner to furnish a Permanent Account Number (PAN) issued by the Income Tax Authorities of himself and his wife to the Registrar, Appellate Side of the Court within two weeks.

“The Registrar to direct the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, having jurisdiction over the Petitioner and his wife, to conduct an enquiry and investigate into the cash transactions alleged in the present C.R.128 of 2024 and take necessary action against all the persons involved in the cash transactions”, it also directed.

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the Writ Petition and directed the accused to be released forthwith.

Cause Title- Hanumant Jagganath Nazirkar v. The State of Maharashtra (Neutral Citation: 2025:BHC-AS:25516-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate Manoj Mohite, Advocates Pranav Pokale, Priyanka Chavan, Aditya Bagal, and Chinmay Sawant.

Respondent: APP S.V. Gavand

Click here to read/download the Judgment