Police must furnish grounds of arrest in writing & not just convey them orally, rules Supreme Court in Prabir Purkayastha case

The Supreme Court’s verdict declaring NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha’s arrest, as well as remand, invalid is set to bring a sea change in the criminal procedures adopted by the police across the country. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta also differentiated between the meaning of the terms ‘reasons of arrest’ and ‘grounds of arrest.’ While the former relates to general parameters on which a person had to be arrested, the latter requires the police to list out specific facts necessitating the arrest of the individual concerned so that he/she could effectively oppose the plea for remand or seek bail, they said. They pointed out that even Article 22 relating to preventive detention of an individual does not use explicitly use the term ‘written communication.’ Yet, the Supreme Court in a catena of decisions, beginning from a 1962 Constitution Bench verdict in Harikisan versus State of Maharashtra, had held that it was imperative to furnish the grounds of preventive detention in writing as well as in a language which the detainee understands. Concurring with his submissions, the Bench wrote: “A bare perusal of the remand order is enough to satisfy us that these two lines were subsequently inserted in the order because the script in which these two lines were written is much finer as compared to the remaining part of the order and moreover, these two lines give a clear indication of subsequent insertion.“ However, authoring the verdict for the Bench, Justice Mehta said, “It is quite possible that the learned remand judge may have heard the learned counsel for the appellant after signing the remand order and thus, these lines were inserted later without intending any harm or malintention but the fact remains that the order of remand had already been passed at 6:00 a.m. and hence, the subsequent opportunity of hearing, if any, provided to the counsel was nothing but an exercise in futility.”