The Supreme Court held that a warrant is adequate to constitute the grounds for arrest. A reading of the warrant to the detained person is sufficient to satisfy the requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest.
The accused’s father filed a writ of habeas corpus at the Andhra Pradesh High Court. He alleged that the CID’s arrest warrant for his son was not meaningful and lacked material information. Therefore, it violated Article 22 of the Constitution and Sections 47 and 48 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. The High Court dismissed the writ petition, reasoning that on the face of it, the reasons proved sufficient.
The Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s decision, holding that for the purpose of Article 22(1), full details of the offence are not necessary. The information should be sufficient for the person to understand the reason for the arrest. They reiterated the ratio in Vihaan Kumar v State of Haryana (2025) that informing a person of the reason for arrest was a constitutional mandate. However, unlike in this case, the arresting authority had furnished no warrant in Vihaan.
Read the Judgement here.
Judgement Date: 23 May 2025
Citations: 2025 INSC 768 | 2025 SCO.LR 5(4)[17]
Bench: J.B. Pardiwala J, R. Mahadevan J
Case Comment
The writ of habeas corpus was prayed for essentially on the ground that although the grounds of arrest were served upon the appellant’s son at the time of his arrest, yet such grounds were not meaningful and were just an eyewash. The grounds of arrest lacked in material particulars.
Held, If a person is arrested on a warrant, the grounds for reasons for the arrest is the warrant itself; if the warrant is read over to him, that is sufficient compliance with the requirement that he should be informed of the grounds for his arrest. If he is arrested without a warrant, he must be told why he has been arrested. If he is arrested for committing an offence, he must be told that he has committed a certain offence for which he would be placed on trial. In order to inform him that he has committed a certain offence, he must be told of the acts done by him which amounts to the offence. He must be informed of the precise acts done by him for which he would be tried; informing him merely of the law applicable to such acts would not be enough. (See: Vimal Kishore Mehrotra
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Key words/phrases: Arrest with warrant—constitutes ground for arrest—reason sufficient under Article 22 of the Constitution—Sections 47 and 48 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita