A Mumbai court on Saturday freed a man who was picked up in Delhi over the alleged circulation of morphed nude pictures of actor Sonakshi Sinha. The magistrate at the Bandra court held that the arrest was illegal because police did not follow the required legal steps while bringing him to Mumbai.
Case filed after actor’s complaint
According to the India Today report, the case was registered on Friday at Bandra police station in Mumbai. Sonakshi Sinha had complained that a person based in Delhi had shared doctored images of her on social media.
Arrest in Delhi and journey to Mumbai
The accused, named as Aryan Deepak Jain, was taken into custody at about 10.11 am on Saturday from Jagatpuri Police Station in Delhi’s Shahdara area. He was then flown to Mumbai and presented before a magistrate at the Bandra court. The magistrate, however, ordered his release.
Court flags lapse in procedure
The court noted that Aryan Deepak Jain was not first produced before the nearest magistrate in Delhi before being taken out of that jurisdiction. It observed:“Thus, it appears that the police have directly brought the accused from Delhi before this Court without following the procedure of production before the nearest Magistrate,” the court observed.The court also said the investigators had given no satisfactory reason for skipping this step.
Police wanted three days of custody
Bandra police had asked for three days of custody. They said they needed time to find the device or medium used to create the morphed image and to take the probe forward.
Defence opposes custody
Aryan Deepak Jain’s lawyers, Aman Shahi, Prashant Trivedi and Aditya Jain, strongly objected. They argued that the arrest broke mandatory safeguards, as police had neither served a notice nor told him the grounds for his arrest. They added that he was brought to Mumbai by air without being presented before a local magistrate.The defence also claimed the police acted in unusual haste because of the complainant’s influential position. Jain maintained that he had committed no offence and that the sections applied in the case did not prima facie fit the facts.
Safeguards under BNSS not met
The magistrate observed that the offences carry a jail term of up to seven years. The court said:“Therefore, the investigating officer was required to comply with the safeguards under Section 35(1)(b) of the BNSS, including recording the reasons showing the necessity of arrest. The record does not disclose satisfactory compliance with the said requirement,” the court said.The court further made it clear that a need to investigate cannot alone justify an arrest.“The mere requirement of further investigation cannot, by itself, justify arrest and detention without following the statutory safeguards,” the court observed.