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Central Bureau of Investigation v. Rathin Dandapat and Others

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 1081 of 2015)Decided 21 Aug 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 1081 of 2015
Justice Dipak Misra · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

Nine people were killed and several villagers injured in Village Netai, West Bengal, in 2011, and the case was eventually transferred for investigation to the CBI. Several accused who had been declared "proclaimed offenders" (absconders) were later arrested in 2014, well after the original charge sheet had been filed. When the CBI sought their remand to police custody for further interrogation, the Magistrate at Jhargram refused, and the Calcutta High Court upheld that refusal, reasoning that once an accused is before the court under Section 309 CrPC, only judicial custody (not police custody) can follow.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had wrongly applied the law. Relying on its earlier three-judge bench ruling in State v. Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, the Court clarified that an absconding accused who is arrested only after the charge sheet is filed is still governed by Section 167 CrPC (which allows police custody) during further investigation, not Section 309 CrPC (which applies only to accused who were already before the court when cognizance was taken). Since supplementary charge sheets had not yet been filed against these particular accused, the investigating agency was entitled to seek police custody for interrogation. The Court set aside both the High Court's and the Magistrate's orders refusing police remand and directed the Magistrate to decide the CBI's remand applications afresh in light of this clarified law. All three appeals were allowed.

Lesson Learnt

When a person who has been absconding is finally arrested after a charge sheet has already been filed against other co-accused, the police can still seek custodial interrogation (police remand) of that newly-arrested person for the purposes of the ongoing further investigation, being arrested late does not automatically entitle an accused to skip police custody and go straight to judicial custody.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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