Patna High Court: The Bench of Ashwani Kumar Singh, J. dismissed a petition praying for the arrest of a few persons named in a first information report.
Petitioner herein had lodged a police case against Respondent’s 6 to 9 for offence under Sections 304-B, 34 and 120-B of the Penal Code, 1860. Since the said respondents had not been arrested so far, the instant petition was filed praying for a direction to the State to arrest them.
The Court observed that there may be a case in which innocent persons may be implicated in the criminal case. The police in course of an investigation may not like to arrest such person. On completion of investigation, the police may submit a report that those persons named in the FIR are innocent. There may be a case where even informant may turn into the category of accused in the same police case. In such cases also, it would be highly unfair to arrest a person, who may be innocent and whose name is maliciously be given by the informant in the FIR.
It was opined that only because a person is named in the first information report, the Court would not issue any direction for the arrest of those persons. Since the instant police case was under investigation; to arrest or to not arrest an accused named in the FIR was within the exclusive domain of police. In view thereof, it was held that it would be highly unsafe for a Court to issue direction, while exercising extraordinary writ jurisdiction, to the respondent authorities to arrest a person named in the FIR.[Govinda Kumar v. State of Bihar, 2019 SCC OnLine Pat 248, Order dated 25-02-2019]
