AJIT KUMAR SARMAH Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The material facts briefly are these : The petitioner is the Ex -president of the Assam College Teachers' Association, President of the Assam Political Science Association and is the Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science of the Handique Girls' College, Gauhati. He is also a prominent member of the Socialist Party, Assam.

(2.) THERE was some sort of turmoil with regard to the holding of the Pre -University Examinations of the Gauhati and the Dibrugarh Universities in June, 1975, and in that connection, it is stated by the petitioner, on the morning of 11.6.1975 the police indiscriminately arrested hundreds of students. The Principal of the Arya Vidya Pith College, Gauhati, lodged a first information report on 12.6.1975 at 6 -30 p.m. at Bharalumukh Police Out Post that "some miscreants entered into the campus and assaulted Vice -principal of the College, Sri B. Bhuyan, and D. Barman, Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics of the College, two bearers, and one student of the College", and requested for necessary action. On that day at about 11 P.M. while the petitioner was relaxing at his house after his meal, the Officer -in -charge of the Gauhati Police Station (respondent No. 3) accompanied by some police constables came to his house and requested him to accompany them to the Thana on the plea that he was sent for by the Superintendent of Police, Kamrup. The petitioner refused to comply with the request on the ground that at that hour of the night he was not willing to go to the Thana, and wanted to know of the police officers if he was under order of arrest and they came to arrest him; and the petitioner demanded the warrant of arrest, if any. The Police officers informed him that there was no warrant of arrest against him and they had not come to arrest him either. Even after that when he refused to comply with the request, the police officers forcibly took him out of his house to a police vehicle parked nearby and then to the Thana. At the Thana he found the Superintendent of Police talking with a gentleman in one room and when the petitioner entered the room, the Superintendent of police requested the petitioner to sit in a nearby room. Accordingly, he was sitting in that room, but the Superintendent of Police left the Thana. After some time the police Officers left their posts. Thereafter he was requested by some constables to go to another room and no action was taken with regard to him. He was in great predicament and had to pass the night sitting till next morning. On the following day in the morning he was visited by some friends and at about 1 P.M. the petitioner was brought to the Prosecuting Inspector's office at the Deputy commissioner's Court at Gauhati where he was kept confined till 5 P.M. He came to know then that a criminal case was instituted against him. He was then sent to hazat. He made an application for bail on 13.6.1976, and, ultimately he was allowed to go on bail by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Gauhati, on 18.6.1975 on execution of a P. R. bond for Rs. 1,000.00.

(3.) THE petitioner appearing in person, first submits that his detention was in violation of Section 50 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and consequently the P. R. bond that he had to execute was also a nullity and prays that he should be freed from that bond.