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Synopsis

While allowing anticipatory bail to a man in a case under the Cow Slaughter Act and the Cruelty to Animals Act, the Allahabad High Court reiterated that irrational and indiscriminate arrests are gross violations of human rights.

"The courts have repeatedly held that arrest should be the last option for the police and it should be restricted to those exceptional cases where arresting the accused is imperative or his custodial interrogation is required", said the court. 

The bench of Justice Siddharth referred to the top court's observations in Joginder Kumar v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1994), where the third report of the National Police Commission was referred which mentioned that arrests by the police in India is one of the chief source of corruption in the police.

The report suggested that, by and large, nearly 60 percent of the arrests were either unnecessary or unjustified and that such unjustified police action accounted for 43.2 percent of expenditure of the jails.

Personal liberty is a very precious fundamental rights and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative. According to the peculiar facts and circumstances of the peculiar case the arrest of an accused should be made, the high court said.

Court was dealing with an anticipatory bail plea filed by one Mohd Tabis Raja in a case registered under Sections 3/5-A/5-B/8 of the Cow Slaughter Act and Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and Section 429 of the IPC at Lanka police station in Varanasi. 

The contention for the applicant's counsel was that he had been falsely implicated in the case and he had definite apprehension that he might be arrested by the police any time.

The high court, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case and considering the nature of the accusation and the applicant's antecedents, granted him anticipatory bail till the submission of police report, if any, under section 173 (2) CrPC before the competent court.

Case Title: Mohd Tabis Raja v. State of UP