HC orders Rs 5L damages to manarrested despite court's stay order

Rajesh Kumar Pandey/TNN

Prayagraj: Allahabad high court directed the UP government to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a man who was arrested and kept in illegal detention by UP Police despite the court’s interim order staying his arrest.

Passing the order, a bench of Justice Siddharth and Justice Vinai Kumar Dwivedi said, “This unfortunate trend is becoming a norm,” and ordered disciplinary proceedings against the concerned SHO for “dereliction in the due discharge of official duty, violation of the order passed by this court and commission of an act of indiscipline.”

The court passed the order on a habeas corpus petition moved by the accused Anil Soni.

In his plea, Soni said an FIR under Section 69 (sexual intercourse by employing deceitful means) and other sections of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) along with provisions of the SC/ST Act was lodged against him in UP’s Siddharth Nagar by a woman with whom he had an affair for the past two years.

Earlier, he moved the high court challenging the FIR. On April 1, another high court bench passed an interim order specifically staying his arrest. The order was uploaded on the high court’s website but the concerned SHO still arrested Soni.

Soni said his brother had prepared a notarised affidavit on the day of the arrest to inform the SHO of the interim order. Even his counsel contacted the SHO via his CUG mobile numbers, but the petitioner was arrested anyway.

The court rejected the state’s justification, noting that the interim order was passed in the presence of govt counsel and the counsel for the informant. Hence, the court noted that all respondents were fully aware of the order.

The bench took into account that the petitioner was not released from jail even after filing the present petition, on which replies were sought from the respondents.

The bench observed, “The counsel for the state either does not intimate the orders passed by this court to the police authorities, as a result of which the authorities do not comply with the order passed by this court or the police authorities are disrespectful towards the court orders and they act in a mala fide manner.”.

The court, while fixing July 13 for the next hearing, directed the Siddharth Nagar SP to file a compliance affidavit regarding payment of compensation to the petitioner, as well as an intimation of the disciplinary proceedings initiated against the SHO.

The court in its order dated May 29 warned that in case of failure, the superintendent of police, Siddharth Nagar will remain present before the high court.