'IO not required to arrest each & every accused at time of filing charge-sheet'

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that Section 170 of the CrPC that it does not impose an obligation on the Officer-in-charge to arrest each and every accused at the time of filing of the charge-sheet, Live Law reported.

The court observed that the practice of some trial courts of insisting on the arrest of an accused as a pre-requisite formality to take the charge-sheet on record is misplaced and contrary to the very intent of Section 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

In the appeal before the Supreme Court against the dismissal of an anticipatory bail application, the court noted that the trial court had taken a view that unless the person is taken into custody the charge-sheet will not be taken on record in view of Section 170 of the CrPC.

The court noted that some Delhi High Court judgments (Court on its own motion v. Central Bureau of Investigation) have held that it is not essential in every case involving a cognizable and non-bailable offence that an accused be taken into custody when the charge sheet/final report is filed.

"The Delhi High Court is not alone in having adopted this view and other High Courts apparently have also followed suit on the proposition that criminal courts cannot refuse to accept a charge-sheet simply because the accused has not been arrested and produced before the court," it noted while referring to the observations made by the Gujarat High Court in Deendayal Kishanchand & Ors. v. State of Gujarat.

The court observed that the word "custody" appearing in Section 170 of the CrPC does not contemplate either police or judicial custody but it merely connotes the presentation of the accused by the Investigating Officer before the court while filing the charge-sheet.

The court added that personal liberty is an important aspect of our constitutional mandate. It observed: "The occasion to arrest an accused during investigation arises when custodial investigation becomes necessary or it is a heinous crime or where there is a possibility of influencing the witnesses or accused may abscond. Merely because an arrest can be made because it is lawful does not mandate that arrest must be made. A distinction must be made between the existence of the power to arrest and the justification for exercise of it. If arrest is made routine, it can cause incalculable harm to the reputation and self-esteem of a person. If the Investigating Officer has no reason to believe that the accused will abscond or disobey summons and has, in fact, throughout cooperated with the investigation we fail to appreciate why there should be a compulsion on the officer to arrest the accused."

The court noted that, in the present case, the accused had joined the investigation, probe has completed and he has been roped in after seven years of registration of the FIR. "We can think of no reason why at this stage he must be arrested before the charge-sheet is taken on record," the court said while allowing the appeal. With agency inputs