Cops Entitled To Protection If Act Is Reasonable, Even If In Excess Of Duty: Bombay HC [Read Judgment]

"It is true that, protection given under section 197 of the Code has certain limitations and is available only when the alleged act of the public servant is reasonably connected with the discharge of his official duty and is not merely a cloak for doing the objectionable act", said the Court. The Bombay High Court in Asif Yusuf Patel v. The State of Maharashtra & others, has decided that police officers must be given protection under the section 197 of the CrPC even if they acted in excess of their duty and, thus, dismissed the petition filed by Asif. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Omprakash and others vs. State of Jharkhand, through the Secretary, Department of Home, Ranchi 1 and another the two important findings that were reproduced were: Question of sanction whether is necessary or not arose at the inception and there were unassailable and unimpeachable circumstances on record which could establish at the outset that the police officer or public servant was acting in performance of his official duty and was thus entitled to protection given under Section 197 of CrPC. After reproduction of the relevant paras, the court in this case said: “It is true that, protection given under Section 197 of the Code has certain limitations and is available only when the alleged act of the public servant is reasonably connected with the discharge of his official duty and is not merely a cloak for doing the objectionable act. It has also observed that, if a police officer in doing his official duty, acted in excess of his duty but there is reasonable connection between the act and performance of the official duty, the excess will not be a sufficient ground to deprive the public servant of the said protection.” In this case, the court observed that there was prima facie no evidence to support the claims of the petitioner that he had been beaten up while in custody of the police and the medical examiner’s report gave a clear indication that the accused was evading arrest and even caused hurt to two police officers in the process, hence, the police officials were entitled to protection under section 197 CrPC in the case.