Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court criticised police’s approach to constitutional safeguards, observing they have traditionally paid scant regard to requirements of Article 22(1) of the Constitution. Police often fail to appreciate significance of fundamental rights when exercising power of arrest, the court said.Article 22(1) of the Indian Constitution states no person can be arrested or detained without being informed of reasons for arrest. It also provides the arrested individual right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of their choice. The provisions apply to all, whether citizens or non-citizens, except for enemy aliens.The high court referred to a series of landmark Supreme Court judgments that make it mandatory to communicate the grounds of arrest in writing to an accused and observed that men in uniform, by training, duties and sometimes compulsion, hardly think of fundamental rights.A division bench of Justice J J Munir and Justice Tarun Saxena further remarked that a policeman, who sees every suspect and accused as guilty, is almost inclined to think that he understands the truth of the matter better than anyone, including a judge in a court far away from the scene of crime.According to the court, police officers never understand that there are always two sides to an allegation of offence and look at only one side. It further observed that police training bereft of knowledge of the law deprives policeman of the forensic eye to understand legal implications, resulting in a continuing tug of war between judicial orders safeguarding individual liberty and breaches by police.The division bench made these observations while quashing remand and arrest of petitioner Rakesh Kumar, noting he was never informed of the grounds of his arrest as mandated under Article 22(1). The court was dealing with a criminal writ petition filed by Rakesh, a resident of Sambhal district, who challenged the legality of his arrest in a case registered under various sections of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The court observed that if an arrest is illegal because the constitutional safeguard has been violated, the accused is entitled to restoration of liberty no matter what the charge is or the gravity thereof.The petitioner alleged that although he was arrested on Apr 20, 2025, he was never informed of the grounds of his arrest, either orally or in writing. While the state relied upon the arrest memo and a general diary entry to contend that the requirement was complied with, high court found that neither document disclosed the factual grounds on which the petitioner was arrested.Examining the arrest memo, the court found that the column meant to record the grounds of arrest merely reproduced standard printed clauses stating that the arrest was necessary for investigation, to prevent tampering with evidence, to prevent the commission of further offences and to secure the accused’s presence before the court.Relying on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Pankaj Bansal vs. Union of India, Prabir Purkayastha vs. State (NCT of Delhi), Vihaan Kumar vs. State of Haryana and Mihir Rajesh Shah Vs State of Maharashtra, the Court reiterated that there is a clear distinction between reasons for arrest and grounds of arrest. “This arrest memo does not carry grounds of arrest, but reasons of arrest.
