VIJAYAWADA: The scathing remarks made by the Andhra Pradesh High Court on the arrest of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu under Section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) during his recent aborted visit to Visakhapatnam have become a hot topic of discussion in the police department and official circles.
Sources in the department told TNIE that they were dismayed that the court did not find merit in the contention of the police that they had acted in good faith to defuse a potentially explosive situation. “It is true that serving notice is not necessary under Section 151 of the CrPC. It is a technicality. It is technically wrong to issue the notice under Section 151. But it was served only for the safety and security of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu. When he was asked not to venture out of the airport in view of the volatile situation outside, he demanded that if he was going to be taken into preventive custody, he be given a notice in writing,” the sources said, and added that there was no mala fide intention behind issuing the notice.
Section 151 of the CrPC relates to the arrest of a person to prevent the commission of cognisable offences. It is invoked if a police officer comes to know of designs by anyone to commit any cognisable offence and using the Section, may arrest the suspect in question without orders from a magistrate and without a warrant.
As per legal experts, the suspect may be arrested if evidence shows that only such a course of action will prevent the planned cognisable offence. In Naidu’s case, there was no evidence to show he was in Vizag to commit a cognisable offence.
Hence, the court sought to know why the notice was served when no cognisable offence was committed. An informed source said the ACP in Vizag served the notice on Naidu and pointed out that the outcome of the entire episode was that no harm came to the Opposition leader.
And yet, action has to be taken against the officer in question as per the High Court order, he sighed, bemoaning the fact that police personnel are becoming victims in the ongoing political slugfest in the State.
Even in the recent Macherla incident, sources said that TDP leaders Buddha Venkanna and Bonda Uma kept the police in the dark about their visit. When trouble broke out, finally, it was the police who came to their rescue, the sources recalled.
Another official, on condition of anonymity, regretted that these developments have come at a time when the police department was trying to reinvent itself as people-friendly and women-friendly in particular by opening Disha police stations.
The fact that DGP Gautam Sawang, the State police chief, had to be in court from morning to evening on Thursday was also a topic of discussion. "It was, may be, harsh," opined an official, adding that particularly so, when the election process was going on across the State. TNIE tried to contact the DGP but he did not respond.