Arrested on Suspicion for Non-Cognizable Act, Jailed Despite Bail Bond: Chhattisgarh HC Grants Rs 25,000 Compensation
The Chhattisgarh High Court held that jailing a man arrested under BNSS Section 170 despite his compliance with a bail bond violated Article 21, awarding Rs 25,000 compensation payable within 30 days.
A Division Bench of the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur, comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, allowed a criminal writ petition filed by Ashraf Beg, a resident of Gharghoda in Raigarh district, who was arrested by police under Sections 170/126 and 135(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) and sent to judicial custody even after he furnished the bail bond directed by the Executive Magistrate. The bench held that the arrest on bare suspicion, without any cognizable offence being made out, violated Article 21 of the Constitution, and that the subsequent remand to judicial custody was without jurisdiction. Compensation of Rs 25,000 was directed to be paid by the State Government within 30 days.
How Ashraf Beg Came to Be Arrested and Jailed
According to the facts placed before the court, a complaint was lodged by one Feroz Kashyap. Acting on that complaint, the police at Police Station Gharghoda summoned Ashraf Beg — not by any written notice — and then pressured him to reach a compromise with the complainant. When he declined, the police arrested him on the ground that he was creating nuisance in the police station and that there was an apprehension of breach of peace.
An Istgasa (a preventive proceeding) was prepared on 25 October 2025 under Sections 170/126 and 135(3) of BNSS, 2023, and Beg was produced before the Executive Magistrate, Gharghoda. The Magistrate passed an order on 25 October 2025 directing his release on furnishing a bail bond of Rs one lakh. Beg furnished the bail bond. Instead of releasing him, the police sent the bail bond for verification to the Revenue Inspector and fixed the case for 28 October 2025. Beg was dispatched to jail in the interim.
On 28 October 2025, the presiding officer was on leave and the matter was deferred to 29 October 2025. The counsel for the petitioner pointed out that other persons who had been produced were released by another Magistrate on furnishing bail bond and sureties on the same date. Beg alone was kept in custody until 29 October 2025, when he was finally released. He had spent several days in jail despite having complied with the Magistrate's own bail order and despite no cognizable offence being registered against him.
The Legal Arguments Before the Bench
Mr Ashutosh Mishra, counsel for the petitioner, advanced two distinct but related propositions. First, he submitted that Sections 170/126 and 135(3) of BNSS, 2023 — the provisions under which the Istgasa was prepared — are preventive in character and do not constitute a cognizable or non-cognizable offence. There was no First Information Report and no case diary. Without any cognizable offence, the police had no power to produce Beg before the Executive Magistrate, and the Magistrate had no authority to remand him to custody.
Second, he drew on the parallel provision of Section 151 of the CrPC (Section 170 of BNSS, 2023), which permits preventive arrest only to forestall the commission of a cognizable offence. A person so arrested can be detained for no more than 24 hours, after which the arresting officer must release him if no offence is made out. Crucially, the counsel argued, Section 167 of the CrPC (Section 187 of BNSS, 2023) — which empowers a Magistrate to authorise further custody — is triggered only when investigation into a cognizable offence has commenced. Since there was no such offence here, the Magistrate had no jurisdiction under Section 167(2) CrPC (Section 187(2) BNSS) to remand Beg to judicial custody.
The counsel also submitted that summoning Beg to the police station without any written notice was itself irregular, and that the act of sending the bail bond for verification rather than releasing him constituted a deliberate deprivation of liberty in violation of Article 21. Compensation of Rs 5,00,000 was sought on those grounds.
The State, through Mr S.S. Baghel, Government Advocate, contended that the petitioner had been produced before the Executive Magistrate, who passed a judicial order granting remand. The custody was therefore judicial custody, not illegal detention, and a writ petition under Article 226 against a judicial order was not maintainable. The State also pointed to the petitioner having eight prior criminal antecedents. Counsel for the petitioner responded that those antecedents pre-dated 2020 and related to trivial offences.
The Bench's Reasoning on Arrest, Remand, and Article 21
The bench began with Section 41 of the CrPC (Sections 35(1) and (2) of BNSS, 2023), observing from a bare reading of the provision that the police power of arrest under that section is preventive in nature and carries no penal character. The court reiterated the settled position that Article 21 encompasses life and liberty with dignity, and that freedom from humiliation and from false or mischievous arrest is part of that guarantee.
On the facts, the bench found that the State had placed no material before it, even at the stage of filing its return, to establish that Beg had committed any cognizable offence. Since no cognizable offence was made out, the petitioner was not required to furnish any security for his enlargement. The arrest was therefore referable at best to a non-cognizable situation, making the subsequent remand to custody under Section 167 CrPC impermissible.
The bench then applied the principles stated by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, (2014) 8 SCC 273, at length. The Division Bench quoted the Supreme Court's observation that “arrest brings humiliation, curtails freedom and cast scars forever” and its direction that a police officer must ask himself, before making an arrest, why it is required and what purpose it will serve. The bench also noted the Supreme Court's analysis of Section 41A CrPC, under which a police officer who does not need to arrest a person must instead issue a notice of appearance. No such notice was issued to Beg; he was summoned orally and then arrested when he refused to compromise.
On the Magistrate's role, the bench held that Section 167 CrPC does not permit remand as a matter of routine. The Magistrate must affirmatively satisfy himself that a non-bailable offence appears to have been committed, that investigation into that offence has actually commenced, and that custody is genuinely necessary. The duty is especially insistent where arrest has been made on mere suspicion. The bench noted that the power of arrest on suspicion is liable to abuse, and the Magistracy's failure to check that power compounds the problem.
The bench then addressed the compensation claim, drawing on the Supreme Court's treatment of the concept of harassment in Mehmood Nayyar Azam v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2012) 8 SCC 1, which defined harassment as encompassing mental annoyance, torment and psychological pressure. It also referred to a line of Supreme Court authority — Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993) 2 SCC 746, D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997) 1 SCC 416, Sube Singh v. State of Haryana (2006) 3 SCC 178, Hardeep Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2012) 1 SCC 748, and Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1 — for the proposition that constitutional courts are entitled to grant compensation when suffering and humiliation caused by unlawful detention are established.
Synthesising these threads, the bench held that on mere suspicion, a person against whom no cognizable or non-bailable offence is made out cannot be arrested and cannot be remanded to judicial custody. In such cases the correct course is to release the person on bail by treating the matter as bailable under Section 436 CrPC (Section 478 of BNSS, 2023).
On the State's Maintainability Objection
The bench did not accept the State's submission that a writ petition under Article 226 is not maintainable against a judicial order. The court's reasoning proceeded on the substantive finding that the arrest and detention violated Article 21, and the consequential direction to pay compensation was made to the State Government. The existence of a judicial remand order did not insulate the State from its constitutional obligation where the foundational arrest was itself bad in law.
Order
The Division Bench allowed WPCR No. 564 of 2025. It held that Ashraf Beg's right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution was violated by his arrest and remand to judicial custody when no cognizable offence was made out against him. The court awarded compensation of Rs 25,000 to the petitioner. The State Government was directed to pay this amount within 30 days from 21 July 2026. No order was made on the claim for Rs 5,00,000, with the court determining Rs 25,000 to be appropriate on the facts.