Police experts, lawyers differ on transit remand rules

LUCKNOW/KANPUR: Two days after he was killed in a police encounter, a controversy has erupted over the transit of gangster Vikas Dubey from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh without him being produced in the nearest judicial magistrate’s court.

Legal experts said it was a violation of the law to bring Dubey from Ujjain to Kanpur without seeking his transit remand from the nearest judicial magistrate.

However, police experts said there was a provision to take the accused along without a transit remand if he could be produced in the competent court, under the jurisdiction of which the offence had been committed, within 24 hours of his arrest.

IB Singh, senior advocate of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court, said the accused should have been produced in the court of nearest judicial magistrate as per the provisions mentioned under Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). If the procedure was not followed and the accused was brought without procuring transit remand, then surely the law had been violated by the police, he added.

Another lawyer Rohit Kant said the police often did not take transit remand if the distance between the court of the judicial magistrate close to the arrest spot and the court, under the jurisdiction of which the crime had been committed, could be covered within 24 hours of the arrest. But such a move could be challenged in court, he added.

Retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer RK Chaturvedi said bringing the criminal without a transit remand was a normal practice in policing.

If the police felt a criminal could be produced before the court at the place where the crime had taken place within 24 hours, there was no compulsion to produce him before the magistrate at the place of arrest.

“In my 40 years of service, we have been doing it both ways. For example, in case someone is arrested in Mumbai and has to be taken to Kanpur, naturally he will be produced for transit remand in court. In the Vikas Dubey case, the police acted perfectly within the rules,” he said.

Arvind Mohan Jaiswal, a retired inspector, said it was not binding to seek transit remand from a court at the place where he was taken into custody or arrested.

“What matters is the criminal has to be produced (in court) within 24 hours from the time of his arrest as shown by the police of a particular place. In these 24 hours, the time of travel is not counted,” he said.