CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has urged the principal secretary, state Home department and the DGP to personally ensure proper training of police officers on mandatory arrest procedures, while granting bail to three accused in a case of alleged robbery from a nationalised bank at Mandhatapur under Nayagarh Sadar police station limits on July 2, 2025.
A single judge bench of Justice Gourishankar Satapathy made the request on Tuesday after finding non-compliance with constitutional and statutory safeguards relating to communication on grounds of arrest of three accused persons. The court noted that the arrest memos merely mentioned that the accused were apprehended in the case, but the mandatory requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest in writing and in a language understood by the accused had not been complied with.
Justice Satapathy said, “It is very high time to prevent such violation of mandatory provisions in as much as the offender may take the benefit of the non-compliance of the aforesaid mandatory statutory requirements which is very much evident in this case and this court has come across so many cases about violations/infractions of the aforesaid provisions under Article 22(1)/Sec 47 of the BNSS (Sec 50 of CrPC) only enduring to the benefit of the offender to get out of the custody mainly on technical grounds.”
“It is, therefore, considered appropriate to inform the director general of police, Odisha and the principal secretary to Home department, Odisha to sufficiently train the police officers making arrest to comply with the mandatory provisions of law, otherwise many hardened criminal will escape by taking this route, which is not in the interest of justice,” he said.
“Accordingly, this court requests the principal secretary, Home department, Odisha and director general of police to bestow personal attention on this aspect to train the police officers and issue suitable instruction/circular to avoid this kind of situation for non-compliance of the aforesaid mandatory provisions,” Justice Satapathy said. The accused Pramod Nayak, Purna Chandra Prusty and Shiba Dakua were arrested on July 2, 2025.
They were booked under Sections 310(2), 311 and 111(3) of the BNS read with Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. The court directed their release on bail bonds of `25,000 each with one solvent surety.