Plea Seeking Setting Up Of Standard Procedures For Arrest: Delhi HC Gives Liberty To The Petitioner To Move Appropriate Forum In Case Of Any Violation Of Arrest Procedures

The Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan has given liberty to the Petitioner to approach the appropriate forum on case there is a violation of legal provisions concerning arrest in any individual case.

Filed by Mr Abhijit Mishra, the present petition seeks a direction to be issued to the Central Government for establishing a standard procedure for making arrests.

The Petitioner also sought for a direction to be issued to the Commissioner of Police to provide standard procedures for arrest along with matrix on police accountability to all the police stations in the State.

It was submitted by the Petitioner that he had filed an RTI application seeking information regarding the awareness of the police officers about the arrest procedures.

It appeared from the response given to the RTI application, the Petitioner submitted, that the police officers at level as high as the level of Deputy Commissioner were not aware of whether any circular has been issued for setting out standard procedures for arrest or not.

Therefore, the Petitioner also demanded the Commissioner of Police to publish a list of advocates empanelled with the Delhi State Legal Services Authority available at every police station.

It is the case of the Petitioner that Articles 21, 22 and 39A of the Constitution, as well as the Sections 50, 50(8), 60(8), 207 and 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code have not been complied with in letter and spirit by the concerned authorities.

The petition states that:

'The guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in various judgments such as DK Basu, Arnesh Kumar, etc, for circulating standards of arrest procedures in every police station has not been compiled with. Even the National Human Rights Commission has taken suo moto cognizance in many matters where the procedures of arrest were violated.'

It was further argued by the Petitioner that in many cases FIRs are not even uploaded on the website of the Delhi Police.

Appearing for Delhi Police, Mr Rahul Mehra submitted that there's already a Standing Order in place by the Delhi Government which addresses the guidelines laid down in all the cases cited by the Petitioner.