Will Issue Guidelines To Ensure No Individual Is Interrogated Overnight: Central Govt Tells Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court was recently informed that the Central government is taking steps to ensure that no individual is detained overnight only for the purpose of interrogation.

A division bench of Justices Revait Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan took the statement on record and ordered the Central government to place its guidelines, if any, before it on the next date of hearing. 

"At this stage, the Counsel states that the Central Government is taking appropriate steps to ensure that the persons are not detained overnight for the purpose of interrogation. Statement accepted. The Counsel further states that the appropriate guidelines will be issued by the concerned Ministry or the Department. The said guidelines, if issued by the next date, be placed before us," the bench recorded in its ordered passed on September 24.

This comes while the bench confirmed the interim bail granted to one Mahesh Gala, who was grilled for 50 hours prior to being arrested by the Goods & Service Tax (GST) Commissioner in a criminal case, in March this year. 

Notably, the petitioner Gala was granted interim bail in May 2024 by the bench after noting that the case was being probed since 2017 and the petitioner was always cooperating with the probe team. It noted that the petitioner was only arrested in March 2024.

According to the petitioner, he entered the Versova-based CGST office on March 13, 2024 by 1:30 PM and was shown to be arrested only after 1:30 PM on March 15, 2024. He contended that the CGST officials grilled him in an illegal detention of nearly 50 hours.

However, the CGST officers disputed the contention and stated that the petitioner was shown to be arrested on March 14 itself and this was because the generation of certain documents took much time.

The bench led by Justice Mohite-Dere, however, criticised the department for keeping the petitioner overnight for recording his statements. It said that since the petitioner had already cooperated with the probe, he could have been called on some other day.

"We deprecate the practice of keeping a person overnight under the guise of recording of his statement, irrespective of whether the person volunteered or not. Arrest is a serious matter and cannot be made in a routine manner on a mere allegation of commission of an offence, inasmuch as, an arrest can cause incalculable harm to the reputation and self esteem of a person," the judges had said on May 10, 2024 while granting interim bail to the petitioner.

The matter will be now heard on December 3, when the department is expected to furnish the guidelines of the Central Government.

Appearance:

Advocates Hrishikesh Mundargi, Pushkraj Deshpande, Rohan Marathe instructed by ALMT Legal appeared for the Petitioner.

Advocates Jitendra Mishra, Satyaprakash Sharma, Ashutosh Mishra, Rupesh Dubey, Saket Katkar and Harpreet Kaur Sethi represented the Central Government 

Additional Public Prosecutor KV Saste represented the State.

Case Details: Mahesh Gala vs Union of India (Criminal Writ Petition 938 of 2024)

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