Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Aug 29: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the interim order of the Jharkhand High Court granting interim bail to News 11 Bharat Journalist Arup Chatterjee.
The possibility that he was detained without adhering to Section 41-A arrest procedure as well as Sections 80 and 81 CrPc requirements for bringing an accused before a magistrate, resonated with the High Court while granting bail.
The State of Jharkhand was requested to submit an affidavit outlining the conduct of its officers so that the issue of the arbitrary use of police authority to arrest may be addressed by a single judge bench presided by Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi.
Following the States’ affidavit in this regard, it had also indicated the plausibility of starting contempt proceedings for breaking the norms of arrest law established by the Apex Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar and D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal.
A Bench made up of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli was troubled to note the blatant transgression by the officers of the State enforcement authority and disregard for the law in making the arrest of the media journalist while considering the petition submitted by the State of Jharkhand against the HC order.
Concerns were raised by Justice Chandrachud about how Chatterjee was taken out of his home and arrested.
“You go to his house at 12 o’clock at night, pull him out of his bedroom…This is no way to treat a media journalist. This is complete lawlessness.”
Earlier, the journalist’s wife had approached the High Court alleging that the arrest was made without following the due process of law.
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The High Court noted that it appears, based on the totality of the evidence, that no notice under Section 41-A CrPC was given to the petitioner’s spouse to assist in the inquiry before obtaining the warrant of arrest from the relevant Court. In addition, despite repeated orders from the Supreme Court and numerous High Courts, friends and family members were not permitted to visit the detained journalist. Given the seriousness of the situation, the High Court declined to deny relief in the petition brought under Article 226 of the Constitution based solely on the issue of maintainability.
The High Court ruled that the petitioner had been detained without following the steps outlined in Sections 80 and 81 of the Criminal Procedure Code and had not been brought before any magistrate’s court in Ranchi.
