Unlawful Arrest: Karnataka HC Orders State Govt to Pay Rs 1 Lakh to Facebook Group Admin

Source: thewire.in

New Delhi: Calling it a “blatant violation of fundamental rights”, the Karnataka high court last week ordered the state government to pay Rs 1 lakh within a month to the administrator of a Facebook group and initiated a departmental inquiry against the magistrate who had ordered his arrest in violation of Supreme Court guidelines.

On May 26, Janata Dal (Secular) lodged a complaint with police, saying that S. Jayakanth had uploaded defamatory posts against former prime minister H.D. Devegowda and his sons, then chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Nikhil Kumaraswamy on the pages he ran on Facebook and Instagram, titled ‘Troll Maga’.

Jayakanth secured anticipatory bail from a local Bengaluru court on June 10, and was directed to surrender within one week.

When he went to the police station on June 17 with surety, police reportedly refused to acknowledge his visit. When he arrived the next day, police issued a notice that he had violated bail conditions.

A second FIR was registered on June 23 by another member of JD(S) and police picked up Jayakanth from his residence.

The petitioner then approached the high court to dismiss the police complaint.

The opening line of the judgment – uploaded by Livelaw on October 15 – stated, “This is yet another classic case of abuse of authority and power”.

Observing that the “liberty of citizen is sacrosanct,” Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar directed the Director General of Police and Inspector General of Police to submit a report on the inquiry against police officers responsible for the arrest. They were also directed to recover the penalty of Rs 1 lakh from the salary of the responsible police officers. 

The Karnataka high court also observed that this was such a “blatant violation of fundamental rights by the police” that “mere quashing of the FIR shall not mitigate the agony which the petitioner was compelled to undergo”.

The court, also directed the registrar of the high court to conduct an inquiry against the judicial magistrate who sent Jayakanth to police custody in the second FIR, even though the petitioner had got anticipatory bail in the first case which was based on the same set of facts.

“A special care was required in the instant case because petitioner was granted anticipatory bail by the learned Sessions Judge, who is superior to him in hierarchy. It is unfortunate that despite binding directions by the apex court in various judgments including Arnesh Kumar, the learned Magistrate has granted police custody.

“By this act of the learned Magistrate, petitioner remained in police custody in spite of an anticipatory bail order in his favour. This is a serious matter and requires correction. Further, the directions contained in paragraph No.11.8 of Arnesh Kumar require initiation of departmental enquiry,

Quashing the second FIR, the bench observers that it was clear that it was registered “only to ensure that the petitioner was somehow arrested and detained in custody”.