3 weeks after arrest, Umar Khalid yet to get FIR copy; court orders police to hand it over

new delhi: Three weeks after the Delhi Police arrested former JNU student leader and anti-CAA activist Umar Khalid in a north-east Delhi riots case, it is yet to supply a copy of the First Information Report to Khalid or his lawyers. A Delhi court has now ordered the police to supply the FIR copy to Khalid and his lawyers at the earliest. The court remarked that settled law prohibited the arrest of a person without informing them of the grounds of arrest under both the Constitution and criminal law.

"The arrested person is entitled to full particulars of the offences for which he is arrested or other grounds for such arrest and his detention will be illegal if he has not been communicated the particulars of the offence," the

court ruled.

While Khalid was first arrested by the Special Cell in the main "conspiracy" case, he was in judicial custody when the police arrested him in a separate riots case related to Khajuri Khas on October 1. Khalid is yet to be given a copy of the Khajuri Khas FIR, which Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak on Tuesday said should be given

to him.

Significantly, during the hearing, Khalid's counsel brought to light that a similar application seeking an FIR copy, reman applications and orders was submitted to the duty magistrate on October 2, the day after his arrest. The defense counsel submitted that the police were on that date asked to supply an FIR copy, which was not complied with.

Judge Pathak also directed the police to supply Khalid with remand applications and the medical examination conducted in police custody.

The court said that the remand application and remand order and the medical reports did not contain any material which may not be disclosed due to sensitivity of the matter or for any other reason.

The court said that Article 22 (1) of the Constitution stipulated that no police official can arrest an individual without informing the grounds of his arrest and Article 22 of the Constitution guaranteed the fundamental right of protection against the arrest and detention.

It further said section 50 of the CrPC provided that every police official with authority to arrest someone without warrant, must inform the person getting arrested about the crime for which he is arrested and other relevant grounds for the arrest.

The public prosecutor argued that Khalid had been informed about the grounds of his arrest and if the documents were supplied to him at this stage, it would open a Pandora's box as then he might move a number of applications for supplying one or the other document.