Devender Kumar & Anr Etc vs State Of Haryana & Ors. Etc

3. It appears that when the Appellant No.1, Devender Kumar, was produced before the Judicial Magistrate, Palwal on 8th October, 2008, in connection with case FIR No.333 dated 18th September, 2008, registered at Hodal Police Station, District Faridabad under Sections 498-A, 406, 506, 323 read with Section 34 IPC, an application was made for police remand by an officer of the rank of Assistant Sub-Inspector, which was rejected vide an order dated 8.10.2008, as the said application was contrary to the provisions of Section 167(1) Cr.P.C. which provide that an application for police remand can be made only by an officer not below the rank of Sub- Inspector. Accordingly, the Appellant No.1 was remanded to judicial custody and was directed to be 3 produced on 22nd October, 2008. Subsequently, however, the position was rectified and as indicated hereinabove, an application was made by the S.H.O., Hodal, on 9th October, 2008, praying for grant of police remand of the accused/appellant Devender Kumar for a period of three days. It was mentioned therein that custodial interrogation of the accused was necessary for recovery of the dowry articles. The said application was dismissed by the learned Judicial Magistrate on 10th October, 2008. The learned Magistrate granted bail to Appellant No.1 by another order dated 10th October, 2008. The Respondent No.4, Kavita alias Shama, filed Criminal Misc. No.28847-M and 28849-M of 2008 in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana praying for cancellation of the bail granted to the appellants. She also prayed for quashing of the orders dated 8.10.2008 and 10.10.2008 by which the application for remand of Appellant No.1 had been rejected. By the impugned order dated 19th March, 2010, the High 4 Court allowed the Criminal Misc. Petitions and quashed the orders dated 8.10.2008 and 10.10.2008 upon holding that Devender Kumar, the Appellant No.1 herein, had made a disclosure statement that dowry articles had been given to him and those articles were lying in his house at Delhi, which could be identified and recovered. Aggrieved by the order dated 19.3.2010 passed by the High Court in Criminal Misc. Nos. 28847-M and 28849-M of 2008, the appellants have filed this appeal.

5. There is no allegation either that the Appellants had made themselves unavailable to the investigating agency after being released on bail. It was urged that despite the above, the High Court allowed the prayer for police remand simply upon observing that the Appellant No.1 made disclosures during investigation that the dowry articles which 6 were given to him were lying in his house at Delhi which could be identified and recovered. A further contention was raised by Mr. Luthra that after an application for police remand had been dismissed when the Appellants were initially arrested and produced before the learned Magistrate, a second application for police remand was not maintainable and that the order of the High Court cancelling the grant of bail to the Appellants was also bad on such ground.

10. With regard to the second point which was urged by Mr. Luthra, the same was considered in depth and was settled in the case of Anupam J. Kulkarni's case (supra) referred to hereinabove. What is clear is the fact that police remand can only be made during the first period of remand after arrest and production before the Magistrate, but not after the expiry of the said period. Of course, we do not agree with the submissions made by Mr. Luthra that the second application for police remand is not maintainable even if made during the first 15 days period after arrest. The said point has also been considered and decided in the above case. Within the first 15 days of arrest the Magistrate 10 may remand the accused either to judicial custody or police custody for a given number of days, but once the period of 15 days expires, the Magistrate cannot pass orders for police remand.

______________J.

(ALTAMAS KABIR) ______________J.

(CYRIAC JOSEPH) New Delhi Dated: 05.05.2010