STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. SADHU PARMESHWAR RAMSWAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) How the casual approach of the police at the time of arresting the accused red-handed could in one way prevent the High Court from finally hearing and deciding the acquittal appeal and in other way inadvertently assisting the accused to give slip to police and manage to keep the safe distance from the Court frustrating the attempt of the State to secure presence and possibly conviction and receive sentence - is an aspect glaring and shocking enough which has incidentally surfaced before us to be suitably dealt with.

(2.) . To briefly narrate, few relevant facts and circumstances of the case constraining this Court to preface the above observations are to the effect that respondent Sadhu Parmeshwar Ramaswamy was caught red-handed by the police at Bhavnagar railway station on 10-5-1995 with "ganja" weighing two-and-half kilos for which he came to be tried for the alleged offences punishable under Secs. 8 and 20 of the N.D.P.S. Act, 1985, by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhavnagar, wherein at the end of the trial he came to be acquitted by the impugned judgment and order dated 7th August 1995. Feeling aggrieved by the same the State has preferred the present appeal which came up for admission before this Court (Coram : K. J. Vaidya and M. H. Kadri, JJ.) on 17-3-1996 wherein while admitting the same non-bailable warrant came to be issued against the respondent-accused making it returnable on 9-4-1996. Thereafter time and again this matter has appeared on the Board but it has been the say of the police that since the respondent is the resident of some remote village in Andhra Pradesh and further since he has given a false (address) name of the village, despite the best of its efforts he has remained untraceable rendering police quite unable to serve non-bailable warrant issued by this Court upon him . In this regard Mr. D. R. Solanki, Head Constable, Bhavnagar City Police Station, has filed an affidavit wherein it is his case that he had personally visited Chittore on 8-6-1996 and met the Town Police Inspector. He has further stated that he has shown the order passed by this Court and the non-bailable warrant issued pursuant thereto and after detailed inquiry and verification of the map of Chittore City and District he was informed that there was no such area named Jayojinagar in Chittore District as given by accused. Further, according to Head Constable, on his making further enquiry he has learnt that respondent used to live on railway platform of Bhavnagar and had no other permanent or temporary shelter in Bhavnagar. He has further assured this Court that though till this moment the accused has remained untraceable the police shall spare no efforts and will continue its further efforts to track him down to serve upon him the non-bailable warrant issued by this Court and the moment he is arrested, he will be produced before this Court.

(3.) . We quite understand and appreciate the difficulty of the investigating agency at this stage in serving the non-bailable warrant and in locating the address of the accused. But we hasten to add that this difficulty is indeed the creation of its own quite callous and indiscreet act of the concerned police officer who arrested the accused on the railway platform. The shrewd and intelligent police officer will never rest contended with the address furnished by the accused person whether he is from State of Gujarat or from outside the State, as he is supposed to be vigilant enough to imagine and suspect that to trust accused in what he says and does is dangerous, because the greater and serious the alleged offence all the more there is a possibility of his giving slip to the police jumping its custody and make impossible his rearrest. This could be easily done only by furnishing false address. Whether the accused is from the outside State or not but where he is found to be involved in an offence where the minimum punishment is of 10 years R.I. and a fine of Rs. 1 lac, the police officer ought to have been on the extreme guard before finally accepting the address at its face value given by the accused. In fact, for this purpose whether the accused is of the Gujarat State or other State, while taking the residential and professional/occupational address, the police can never relax its concern to gulliblly accept whatever address that is furnished by the accused. In fact, after an accused gives his address be it of any part of the State of Gujarat or any other parts of other States, it is the foremost duty of the concerned police officer to verify the correctness of the address given by the accused. The reason is in a given case if false address is furnished and thereafter for whatever reason if by chance the Court grants a bail and if the accused jumps the bail then, the police agency would be rendered totally helpless to trace out the accused as it has happened in the instant case. In serious cases like the present one under Narcotic Act every police officer with ordinary prudence is required to see to it that the accused does not outplay them in the smartness by throwing dust in their eye by giving a false address. As a matter of fact, after obtaining the address from the accused the concerned police officer if he is indeed worth the police officer in name, he is bound to verify the same either by insisting upon production of some (i) ration card, (ii) electricity bill, (iii) the electoral roll (where his name is shown as a voter), (iv) some revenue record, (v) panchayat dakhala (vi) some municipal tax bills, (vii) some place of employment, occupation, service, (viii) Bank account, if any, (ix) scooter, car or truck licence, (x) insurance policy papers and/or (xi) gathering the information from the persons with whom the accused was residing or serving at the time of his arrest. If this much most needed care is not taken by the police, the accused will always have upper hand outsmarting police making it chase and chase and ultimately prevent the police from arresting him. We have laboured to dwelve quite at length on this point because, in our country day in and day out the police must be coming across several such cases wherein the accused arrested for the various alleged offences many a time are found to be hailing from different States and in some of the cases accused managed to give slip to the police by furnishing false address, and as a result on his absconding he is not traced. Under such circumstances, the whole cause of public interest and the ultimate justice would suffer . In order not to take such avoidable risks which we indeed don't want to undertake and accordingly we believe that if the Secretary, Home Department, and the Director General of Police is not alerted on this point by inviting their immediate attention to the casual approach of the police in taking the address without any efforts to verify the correctness of the same, we are afraid, very many good criminal cases would be lost to the greatest detriment and prejudice to law and order situation in short the vital public interest .. We hope and trust that whatever that has been observed here shall be immediately taken a serious note of it and all the police officers in the State shall accordingly be informed and alerted by the special circulars and that too repeatedly at some regular interval to refresh their memory every year so that even the new incumbents in the police department know their respective duties of the importance of verifying the correct addresses of the accused at the time of arrest. We also feel it to be quite desirable if the suggestion given on the pages of this judgment are incorporated in Gujarat Police Manual also which in turn will serve as a standing guide-line to all police officers on the point .