NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday came down heavily on the Madhya Pradesh police for illegally arresting a US-based NRI doctor and her lawyer mother in 2012 while quashing the FIR filed by it and asking the State to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to them, saying “freedom has its sanctity”.
A vacation bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice S K Singh held that the proceedings before the magisterial court against the mother-daughter duo lacked ingredient of section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and hence quashed.
“On a studied scrutiny of the report, it is quite vivid that the arrest of the petitioners was not made by following the procedure of arrest. Section 41-A (notice of appearance) of the CrPC as has been interpreted by this Court has not been followed. The report shows there have been number of violations in the arrest and seizure. Circumstances in no case justify the manner in which the petitioners were treated,” it said.
Rini Johar and her mother Gulshan Johar were arrested on November 27, 2012 from their residence at Pune
It was alleged that they committed fraud of $10,500 related to purchase cameras and a laptop
The women claimed that they were taken from Pune to Bhopal in an unreserved railway compartment and were compelled to lie on the train floor without any food