An illegal arrest should cost the officer who makes it, not just the taxpayer

In 2017 Bipin Agrwal was negotiating on behalf of his elderly mother-in-law with a builder who wanted to redevelop her housing society. The developers paid an advance of ₹2 lakh. Then Azad Maidan police arrested him for extortion. Only afterwards did they register the FIR. Dates on his arrest memo were overwritten, a notice that should have been served before any arrest was served after it, and police records called a man with a clean record a habitual offender likely to abscond. A magistrate sent him to custody, and he spent 26 days there.

On Thursday the Bombay High Court called this “a case of sheer abuse of process by the developer in collusion with the police”. Justices A S Gadkari and Kamal Khata ordered Maharashtra to pay him ₹5 lakh within two weeks, directed proceedings against the sub-inspector, and asked the High Court’s administrative side to look at magistrates who extend remand without recording reasons.

It is a strong judgment. It also arrives nine years late, and the pattern it describes is not rare.

The same story, again

In 2024 another bench of the same court dealt with a journalist arrested in Maharashtra on charges of extortion and criminal intimidation. A notice of appearance had been prepared but was never served; he was arrested instead and spent three days in jail. The judges found the police had acted “in a mechanical and casual manner” and ordered an inquiry by senior officers.

The rule both arrests broke is not new. In Arnesh Kumar in 2014 the Supreme Court told the police that for offences punishable with up to seven years, the default is a notice asking the person to appear, not handcuffs. Courts have repeated it since. In one case where an officer was held personally to account, the Delhi High Court in 2021 sentenced a sub-inspector to a day in jail and costs for ignoring it. “Arrest and incarceration destroys a person and collaterally affects many other innocent relatives,” Justice Najmi Waziri wrote.

The rule has existed for twelve years. It is still broken because breaking it rarely costs anyone anything.

The fair objection

The police do need the power to arrest, quickly and sometimes on incomplete information. An officer who fears paying damages out of his own salary for every arrest a court later questions may hesitate when a suspect really is about to flee or threaten a witness. Magistrates in busy courts hear dozens of remand requests a day.

That argues for a clear line, not for doing nothing. Personal liability should follow bad faith and plain breaches of settled rules: an arrest before a case exists, a forged date, a notice deliberately withheld. Honest mistakes made on reasonable grounds are a different matter, and the law can say so.

What should change

First, Maharashtra should do what the court allowed it to do. It should recover the ₹5 lakh from the officers found responsible and say publicly that it has. Compensation paid only from the treasury teaches the force nothing.

Second, every arrest for an offence carrying up to seven years should require a recorded, time-stamped note explaining why a notice of appearance was not enough, filed before the person is taken in. A memo that can be overwritten later is no safeguard.

Third, magistrates should not authorise custody without writing down why it is needed, and High Courts should audit remand orders regularly, as the Bombay High Court has now begun to do.

Fourth, states should set up a compensation scheme for wrongful arrest so that victims are not forced to fight for a decade in the High Court. Most people arrested on a false case do not have the means to do what Mr Agrwal did.

Liberty is lost in an afternoon and restored, if at all, years later. The cheapest way to protect it is to make the officer think twice before the arrest, not to apologise long after it.

The reporting behind this view

• 26 daysspent in police and judicial custody by Bipin Agrwal in 2017, on an FIR registered after his arrest
• ₹5 lakhcompensation ordered by the Bombay High Court on 22 October 2026, recoverable from the officers at fault
• 7 yearsmaximum sentence for offences where, since 2014, a notice to appear should normally come before any arrest