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Prabir Purkayastha vs State (NCT of Delhi)

Not available · 2024 INSC 414Decided 15 May 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

Prabir Purkayastha, Director of the company running the news website NewsClick, was arrested in October 2023 under UAPA provisions in connection with an FIR alleging, among other things, unlawful funding and conspiracy. He was produced before a Delhi remand judge before 6 a.m., and the order remanding him to police custody was passed without the written grounds of arrest ever being furnished to him or his lawyer beforehand: indeed, his engaged lawyer was only informed after the remand had already been granted, and a "remand advocate" he had never hired was kept present instead. The Delhi High Court dismissed his challenge to this arrest and remand, holding the process was lawful, prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court extended its earlier ruling in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (decided under the PMLA) to arrests under the UAPA, holding that Section 43B(1) of the UAPA is worded almost identically to the PMLA provision and both flow from the same constitutional guarantee under Article 22(1), meaning a written copy of the grounds of arrest must be furnished to every arrested person as a matter of course, not merely read aloud or provided informally. Examining the actual timeline through call logs and the remand order itself, the Court found clear evidence that the remand had already been granted (recorded as passed at 6:00 a.m.) before the appellant's lawyer was even informed (around 7:00 a.m.), and that lines in the order suggesting the lawyer had been consulted appeared to have been inserted afterward. The Court distinguished the generic "reasons for arrest" in the formal arrest memo (crime-prevention boilerplate) from the constitutionally required "grounds of arrest" (case-specific facts), finding the latter were never properly communicated in writing before remand. Because this violated the fundamental right under Article 22(1), the arrest and subsequent remand were declared invalid and quashed, and the appellant was ordered released on furnishing bail and bonds (since a chargesheet had meanwhile been filed), with the Court clarifying that its findings addressed only the legality of the arrest process, not the merits of the underlying case.

Lesson Learnt

Anyone arrested (whether under the PMLA, UAPA, or any other law) has a fundamental right under Article 22(1) of the Constitution to be given the specific written grounds of their arrest promptly and before being remanded to custody; generic "reasons for arrest" boilerplate on an arrest memo does not satisfy this requirement, and failure to comply renders the arrest and remand illegal regardless of how serious the underlying allegations are.

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

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