Narada Case: Police Custody Not Permissible After Chargesheet Is Submitted Says Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra

Background of the case

• Recently in the Narada Scam case, the CBI sought the transfer of the trial and a declaration that the hearing in the trial court on May 17th in which bail was granted to 4 TMC leaders, was void on account of mobocracy.
• The five-judge bench of Hon’ble Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justices I. P. Mukherjee, Harish Tandon, Soumen Sen, and Arijit Baneerjiare hearing the matter.
• The matter was continued on 15th June where the Senior Advocate appearing for one of the four arrested TMC leaders made a few submissions before the court.
• Senior Advocate A. M. Singhvi for TMC leaders, in his arguments on 15th June, claimed that public perception is not a valid ground under the law and focused that the main question was whether the May 17th protests hindered the administration of justice.

Submissions of Sr. Advocate Luthra

• Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra who appeared for one of the four TMC leaders while referring to the K. K. Giridharvs M. S. Kathuria in Delhi High Court submitted before the bench that the question of custody and remand doesn’t arise when an investigation is complete and the chargesheet is filed. He also referred to H. N. Rishbud & Anr. vs. State of Delhi which was followed by the Calcutta High Court in its recent judgment.
• He cited the case where Actor Mithun Chakraborty was permitted to participate in the investigation for alleged incitement to post-poll violence by way of audio-video conferencing and submitted that CBIs argument regarding the failure of producing the accused before the special court because of mob pressure is fallacious as the state amendments made by the WB Government in S. 167 of CrPC enable the production of accused in audio-video court proceedings.
• He also cited another provision that allows the Court to peruse the case diary during the trial. Further, he claimed thatthe objectives of CrPC and the CBI Manual were not followed by CBI at the time of arrest, leading to an elaborate discussion on whether the manual is binding or not. On this Justice Tandon remarked that the manual is for the administrative working of CBI and may not have a statutory flavour. To this Adv. Luthra submitted that the agency has to comply with its internal mechanism as it is recognized by the constitution bench of SC in the LalitaKumari case.
• Luthra further contended that the arrest of the TMC leaders was unlawful and that bail was inevitable.
• He further claimed that the arrest memo was made at 8.45 am at Nizam Palace and that is a clear violation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s Judgment in NandiniSatpathy vs. Dani and D. K. Basu vs. State of West Bengal.
• Placing reliance on Vinubhai Haribhai Malaviya vs. State of Gujarat, he further went on to inform the bench that CBI had initially said that custody of the accused was not necessary and that there was no need for further investigation. Despite that, the Agency still proceeded with a further investigation without the permission of the Magistrate.
• He also claimed that the CBI is seeking interpretation of the judicial order passed by the Special Court on 17th May, which is unheard of in law.

What do you think of this case?