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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently held a Police Officer guilty of contempt for deliberately bypassing the mandate of the Supreme Court in the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar and last week sentenced him to undergo simple imprisonment for 14 days.

Court noted that contemnor Chandan Kumar, Incharge of Police Station, Kanth, District Shahjahanpur, in a case registered under Sections 353, 504, 506 of IPC, though served a notice of appearance under Section 41A CrPC on the accused, but, to bypass the mandate of the Supreme Court, he willfully and deliberately merely recorded in the General Diary (GD) that accused declined to accept the terms and condition of the notice and arrested him. 

As per the Arnesh Kumar judgment, the arrest should be the exception where the offence is punishable with less than 7 years imprisonment, and notice for appearance under Section 41A CrPC should be served on the accused in such cases instead of arrest. The arrest can be made in exceptional circumstances in such cases, but the reasons have to be recorded in writing.

However, in the instant case, it was found that though the concerned offences were covered under the provisions for which maximum punishment was not more than 7 years, however, the mandate of Section 41A was not complied with by the Investigating Officer (IO) Chandan Kumar and no proper reason for the arrest of the accused was recorded in writing by the IO.

The bench of Justice Suneet Kumar and Justice Syed Waiz Mian observed that further communal colour was attempted to be given to the case by the contemnor taking advantage of the fact that the accused belonged to the Muslim community.

Court noted that though there was no entry in the GD that there was any such apprehension of a communal flare-up in the event of the accused not being arrested, the contemnor claimed that there was an apprehension of communal riots and therefore, he had arrested the accused. 

"The misleading entry in the GD was made willfully and deliberately with sole purpose to bypass the mandate in Arnesh Kumar (supra), in order to arrest the accused. The contemnor, in the circumstances, has circumvented the mandate which was binding upon him," Court held. 

Therefore, refusing to take a sympathetic view on the quantum of punishment, Court awarded simple imprisonment for 14 days to the contemnor and further imposed a fine of Rs. 1000.

However, on a pleading forwarded by the counsel for the contemnor that would like to prefer an appeal under Section 19 of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971, Court kept the sentence in abeyance for 60 days from the date of the order. 

Case Title: In Re v. Shri Chandan Kumar, Investigating Officer