Krishna, Maddileti arrests illegal: HC

Expressing displeasure at trial court magistrates for their casual attitude in remanding the accused without verifying whether mandatory provisions that are required by the police officers have been followed, the Telangana High Court observed that the casual attitude of magistrates is not good for society and the judiciary.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, while dealing with a habeas corpus petition filed by the wives of Nalamasa Krishna, Vice-president of Telangana Praja Front and Maddileti, an MCJ student of Telugu University, seeking direction to produce them before the court, termed the arrest of duo illegal, as the Telangana police have not followed the mandatory provision, Section 41B of Criminal Procedure Code, while arresting the two.

The bench also found fault with the trial court for routinely remanding them to judicial custody without pointing out the police's error. Once the police apprehend an accused and decide to arrest him, the first task is that they have to inform the family members of the accused, in the absence of which a respectable person of that particular locality should be informed and his signature obtained on the memorandum of arrest. Both these mandatory provisions were blatantly ignored by the police in this case. When the bench asked the government counsel Mr. Santosh failed to show evidence that the police followed mandatory provisions. He submitted that both accused were arrested on October 15 on the grounds that both have links with the banned Maoists, after which they were produced before the magistrate.