The Supreme Court on Wednesday held a judge and a police officer of Surat in Gujarat guilty of contempt of the Court for sending an accused in a case to police custody for interrogation.
While sending the accused into custody for interrogation, the fact that he had already been granted anticipatory bail by the Supreme Court was ignored.
The Supreme Court accused the said Gujarat judge of acting in a ‘biased’ and ‘arbitrary manner’ while granting police custody.
In a judgment, the court said that the criminal justice system requires courts to exercise judicial discretion on the facts of the case before granting police custody, provided it is genuinely necessary.
“Courts are not expected to act as messengers of the investigating agencies and remand applications should not be allowed in a routine manner”, the Supreme Court said.
A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and Sandeep Mehta had granted anticipatory bail to Tusharbhai Rajnikantbhai Shah on December 8, 2023.
The bench expressed surprise that despite its order being in force, a judicial officer considered the plea of the investigating officer and sent the accused to police custody for interrogation.
“The action of the contemptible respondent no. 7 (Deepaben Sanjaykumar Thakar, 6th Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat) in sending the petitioner to police custody and not releasing him on completion of the period is clearly against the order of this court…and amounts to contempt,” the bench said.
“The disobedient action of the contemnor-respondent (judge) is also responsible for keeping the petitioner in illegal custody for about 48 hours after the expiry of the period of police remand. The conduct of the judicial officer clearly indicates his partisan approach in this matter,” the bench said.
Discussing in detail the role of Police Inspector R.Y. Rawal of Vesu Police Station, Surat, the Supreme Court said that the plea for police custody of the accused during the interim protection granted to him is a blatant disregard of the order of this court and amounts to contempt. The bench held him guilty of contempt of the order of December 8 last year.
Writing the 73-page judgment, Justice Gavai said the Supreme Court’s order leaves no doubt that the interim protection of anticipatory bail is “absolute, unless it modifies or alters it while deciding this petition”, which is still pending.
The Supreme Court rejected the unconditional apology of the lower court judge, saying that she had dealt with the case in a “predetermined manner”.
The Bench, however, absolved Surat Police Commissioner of the contempt charges, saying his role was limited to the aspect of non-functioning of CCTV cameras installed at the police station to ascertain the claim of the accused regarding custodial torture.
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