New Delhi, Feb 20: The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it was “compulsory and unquestionable” to give grounds of arrest in writing irrespective of the law and quashed the arrests of self-styled army chief of the proscribed separatist organisation United National Liberation Front (UNLF) Thokchom Shyamjai Singh and others.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani referred to the Supreme Court’s verdicts in Pankaj Bansal, Prabir Purkayastha and Vihaan Kumar, which he said were founded on Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the court said there remained “no doubt that the requirement of serving grounds of arrest in writing to an arrestee is compulsory and unquestionable regardless of whether an arrest has been made under the PMLA or the UAPA or under any other criminal statute”.
“Moreover, the burden to prove compliance with the requirements of Article 22(1) of the Constitution always rests with the investigating agency,” added the high court.
Article 22(1) prescribes that no person who is arrested should be “detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice”.
While granting the relief to Singh, the court also quashed the arrests of “lieutenant colonel” Laimayum Anand Sharma, the head of the organisation’s intelligence department, and organisation’s member Ibomcha Meite, who were picked up by the National Investigation Agency from Manipur and brought to Delhi.
“The arrest of all three petitioners on March 13, 2024 is accordingly vitiated and is hereby set-aside. Consequently, the remand order dated March 14, 2024 and all subsequent remand orders passed by the special court are also quashed,” held the court.
The trio was directed to be released from judicial custody unless required in any other case and a copy of the judgment was ordered to be served to the jail superintendent for expeditious compliance. From the special court’s orders, the high court noted that the former did not look into whether the grounds of arrest in writing were served upon the accused persons.
No transit remand or other order of a court was obtained by the NIA before bringing the petitioners to Delhi after taking them into custody in Manipur’s Imphal, it added.
The verdict therefore said it appeared that no legal representation was given to the trio at the relevant stage.
“As a sequitur to the above discussion, and notwithstanding the seriousness of the allegations made against the petitioners, there is only one inference that can be drawn, namely that in the present case the NIA has failed to comply with the mandate of serving the grounds of arrest upon the petitioners in writing, whether at the time of arrest or even later-on, whether in the arrest memos or in the remand applications,” said the court.
The trio challenged their arrests by the NIA under IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Following their arrests in Manipur in March 2024, they were produced before a court in Delhi by the NIA.
They argued as they weren’t served with the grounds in writing as mandated under the law, their arrests were illegal and unconstitutional, and deserved to be set aside.
The NIA alleged that the petitioners spearheaded terrorist activities of the UNLF by raising funds for the organisation by resorting to extortion and had been recruiting cadres and procuring weapons to foment violence in Manipur by fanning ethnic strife.
It alleged that the petitioners were part of a “trans-national conspiracy” hatched by Myanmar-based terror outfits, to exploit the ethnic unrest in Manipur and to wage war against the Government of India.
Since the petitioners were arrested on March 13, 2024, there was no legal requirement for the NIA to have given the grounds of arrest in writing but the grounds were explained to them orally, the agency argued.
The NIA said the accused were later provided with the grounds of arrest as part of the remand applications.
The agency argued it could not have complied with such a requirement in relation to an arrest made under the UAPA before the decision was rendered by the Supreme Court in Prabir Purkayastha (to give grounds of arrest in writing to an arrestee in UAPA cases).
The high court, however, did not accept the NIA’s contention.
“There cannot be any two views, that the mandate of Pankaj Bansal (to give grounds of arrest in writing in PMLA cases) would apply to the arrest of the petitioners in the present case, even though they were arrested on March 13, 2024,” it said. (PTI)
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