Bombay High Court raps cops for failing to answer queries on lawyer's arrest

The police earned the ire of the Bombay High Court on Monday after it failed to answer some queries on the arrest of a lawyer on charges of kidnappingA bench of Justices SJ Kathawalla and SP Tavade was hearing two connected pleas related to the arrest of lawyer Vimal Jha one filed by the accused himself and the other by a group called Lawyers for Just Society both contending that the arrest made last month was illegalThe pleas claimed police flouted CrPC norms as well as Supreme Court orders during the arrestAs per the pleas Jha was arrested on April 3 but produced before a magistrate only on April 5 though the CrPc mandates that one should be produced before a magistrate within 24 hoursAs per the pleas he was also handcuffed when produced in court despite the Supreme Court directing that no accused shall be handcuffed unless a magistrates order is obtained for the sameAlso ReadHow celebs politicians procuring distributing Remdesivir Bombay HC to govtThe states counsel Chief Public Prosecutor Deepak Thakare denied the allegations made by the petitioners and told the bench Jha was arrested on April 4 and produced before the magistrate court on April 5He later said Jha was called to the police station on April 3 but an FIR was registered around 4 am on April 5 and he was arrested only after thatWhen the bench asked Thakare for the CCTV footage from the concerned police station to confirm the same Thakare said the police station did not have CCTV cameras installed at the time of Jhas arrest adding that it had installed CCTVs only on May 1 this yearThakare also told HC Jha was handcuffed because the police had been informed by a coaccused in the case that Jha was likely to flee from custodyTaking strong exception to these submissions the bench reminded Thakare of SC orders which mandate that all police stations must have CCTV camerasHow many police stations do not have CCTV and why An advocate is behind bars Please take this matter seriously Who went to call him to the police station Which officer went to call him Why are you repeatedly making false statements before us the HC saidIt also asked if Jha was some great criminal that he had to be handcuffedThe bench directed Thakare to get the police to file an affidavit by Wednesday on the investigation carried out so far and also submit details of when Jha was brought to the police station and when he was arrestedThe court also asked Thakare to caution the officers preparing the affidavit against making any false statementsMr Thakare please do your duty outside the court and tell the officers to be very careful If the police is going to behave like thisdont compel us to ask the CBI or some other agency to investigate the HC warnedAs per the petition Jha was arrested by Kharghar police after one his clients lodged a complaint alleging kidnapping and extortionThis client had several criminal complaints against his name and Jha had merely accompanied him to several places for court hearings and the kidnapping and extortion case was false the petitioners counsels Subhash Jha and Prashant Pandey told HCThe HC will continue hearing the pleas on May 19This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever