HYDERABAD: Expressing doubts over the recent arrest of Telangana Praja Front () leader Nalamasa Krishna and Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika (TVV) leader Bandari Maddileti, by the police were not made as per provisions of Sec 41-B CrPC, a division bench of Telangana High Court on Thursday directed the police to file a detailed counter affidavit in the petition filed by the wives of the above two detenues.
It appears that the police did not follow the procedure before making the arrests. If the mandatory provisions of the said section were blatantly ignored by the police, then the arrest would be declared as illegal, the bench noted.
As per Section 41B CrPC, every police officer while making an arrest should follow the procedure i.e. clear identification of the person concerned; prepare a memorandum of arrest attested by at least one witness and countersigned by the person arrested and inform the person arrested unless the memorandum is attested by a family member.
The two leaders were arrested on Oct 15 by the police at TPF office in the city on charges of alleged links with the banned Maoist party and their whereabouts not known to their family.
The police did not disclose the grounds why they were arrested. Apprehending threat to the life of the detenues, their wives filed the habeas corpus petition before the high court seeking directions to the police to produce them in the court.
When the matter came up for hearing before the bench, government counsel Santosh Kumar told the court that the police have made the arrests as per the guidelines and were produced before the magistrate and then they were sent to judicial remand.
He sought some time for filing counter-affidavit on the issue. Intervening, the bench asked the government counsel to show the evidence as to whether the police have either informed the family members of the detenues or obtained signatures of the witnesses on the memorandum of the arrest.
If the police have failed to show such evidence then the detention would be declared as illegal. It was very unfortunate that the magistrates were also passing orders of judicial remand in many of the cases without examining whether the arrests were made as per the mandatory provisions, the bench observed.