Orissa HC Flags Illegal Arrest Practices While Granting Bail To Bank Robbery Accused

By Pradip Das

Cuttack: Stressing the primacy of procedural safeguards as an integral facet of personal liberty as provided in Indian constitution, the Orissa High Court called upon the Director General of Police (DGP) and the Principal Secretary to the Home Department to personally supervise and institutionalise structured training for all police officers on the constitutional obligation to furnish written grounds of arrest to an accused.

The direction was issued last week when a single-judge Bench of Justice Gourishankar Satapathy was adjudicating a bail application arising out of the July 2, 2025, robbery at a nationalised bank at Mandhatapur in Nayagarh district.

Although the three accused — Pramod Nayak, Purna Chandra Prusty and Shiba Dakua — were released on bail of Rs 25,000 each with one solvent surety, the High Court invoked the doctrines of constitutional supremacy, due process and legality of arrest to censure recurring violations of Article 22(1) of the Constitution read with Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

Treating the requirement as a mandatory condition precedent to a lawful arrest, Justice Satapathy held that non-compliance vitiates the remand itself. It recorded that the grounds of arrest must be supplied in writing and in a language understood by the accused, and where immediate written communication is not feasible, it must be followed by written disclosure within a reasonable time and at least two hours prior to production before the Magistrate.

The order makes it explicit that failure in this regard renders the arrest illegal and entitles the arrested person to get bail. Expressing serious concern over systemic lapses, the High Court observed that “It is very high time to prevent such violation of mandatory provisions… this court has come across in so many cases of violations/infractions… only ensuring to the benefit of the offender to get out of the custody mainly on technical grounds.”

Emphasising administrative accountability and the doctrine of constitutional governance, the Bench directed the state’s top law-and-order functionaries to intervene at the policy level. “It is, therefore, considered appropriate to inform the Director General of Police and the Principal Secretary to Home Department to sufficiently train police officers… otherwise many hardened criminals will escape by taking this route, which is not in the interest of justice,” the HC order said.

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