NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will examine in August a plea filed by an accused gangster on whether a habeas corpus petition can be used to challenge the continued detention of an accused facing repeated arrests in different cases.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Sheel Nagu issued notice to the Madhya Pradesh government on a petition filed by Haji Abdul Razzak, an alleged gangster who has been lodged in jail since August 2021.
Razzak contended that he had been kept in custody through successive arrests without being provided written grounds of arrest, violating his fundamental right to personal liberty.
The Court was hearing his challenge to a Madhya Pradesh High Court order rejecting his habeas corpus petition. The High Court had held that his detention was lawful as he remained under judicial custody in multiple FIRs pending against him.
Appearing for the petitioner, counsel argued that the state was resorting to "chain arrests" to keep Razzak behind bars despite procedural safeguards.
It was contended that each arrest violated Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which mandates written communication of the grounds of arrest, and infringed Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution.
The bench observed that the case raises an important legal issue—whether habeas corpus is an available remedy when an accused is detained through a series of arrests, each allegedly suffering from procedural defects.
"Issue notice. Reply in four weeks," the bench ordered, listing the matter for hearing in August 2026.
According to the plea, Razzak was first arrested in August 2021 in connection with a property dispute. Since then, he has been named in seven other cases, with the police allegedly showing his arrest afresh each time he became entitled to bail.
He further claimed that the arrest memos in all the cases did not contain written grounds of arrest.
In its May 2026 order, the High Court had held that the existence of a valid remand in any one case barred relief through a habeas corpus petition.
The Supreme Court will now decide whether such serial arrests can be challenged through habeas corpus and whether failure to provide written grounds in each arrest renders the continued custody illegal.