Making arrests shouldn't be a routine job : SC | Economic Times

Just because arrest are allowed under law, they should not be made in a routine manner as they can cause incalculable harm to a person's reputation and self-esteem, said a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy.The Supreme Court counted personal liberty as an important leg of constitutional mandate when it said that arrests must not be made when there is not much reason to believe that the accused will abscond or influence the investigation and when they're cooperating in a probe.Despite comprehensive guidelines having been issued by the apex court in 1994, regular arrests have been made that are even insisted upon by lower courts as a charge sheet is filed for a non-bailable offence, regretted the bench."The occasion to arrest an accused during investigation arises when custodial investigation becomes necessary or it is a heinous crime or where there is a possibility of influencing the witnesses or accused may abscond. Merely because an arrest can be made because it is lawful does not mandate that arrest must be made. A distinction must be made between the existence of the power to arrest and the justification for exercise of it," the bench said."If the investigating officer has no reason to believe that the accused will abscond or disobey summons and has, in fact, throughout cooperated with the investigation, we fail to appreciate why there should be a compulsion on the officer to arrest the accused," it said.The bench noted that Section 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which requires trial courts to order the arrest of the accused, does not require the officer-in-charge to arrest each and every accused at the moment the chargesheet is filed. The bench cited other HC decisions holding that a criminal court cannot refuse to accept a chargesheet just because the accused has not been apprehended and brought before the court."We are in agreement with the aforesaid view of the high courts and would like to give our imprimatur to the said judicial view… We have, in fact, come across cases where the accused has cooperated with the investigation throughout and yet on the chargesheet being filed, non-bailable warrants have been issued for his production premised on the requirement that there is an obligation to arrest the accused and produce him before the court," the bench said."The word custody appearing in Section 170 of the CrPC does not contemplate either police or judicial custody but it merely connotes the presentation of the accused by the investigating officer before the court while filing the chargesheet," it said.The court issued the order in response to an accused's request for anticipatory bail after an arrest note was issued against him after a trial court in Uttar Pradesh decided that the chargesheet would not be entered on record unless the defendant was brought into custody, citing Section 170 of the CrPC.