HC rejects Anil Jaisinghani’s petition against ‘illegal’ arrest

The Bombay high court on Monday refused to grant relief to bookie Anil Jaisinghani and his cousin Nirmal, who had challenged their arrest on charges of trying to bribe and blackmail Amruta Fadnavis, wife of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

A division bench of justice A S Gadkari and justice P D Naik said their petition, which claimed that their detention by the Gujarat police and subsequent custody taken by the Malabar Hill police was illegal for procedural lapses, lacked merits.

On April 1, a special court under the Prevention of Corruption Act rejected their bail plea.

In their petition filed in the HC through advocate Manan Sanghai, the Jaisinghanis claimed that police had violated section 41 (arrest without warrant) and 41A (notice of appearance issued by investigating officer) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) while arresting them, and hence, the sessions court’s remand order should also be quashed.

Anil and Nirmal were arrested in Godhra on March 19, but they were not produced before a magistrate between Godhra and Mumbai and were instead produced before a sessions judge in the city 36 hours later, and this was against the law, defence counsel Mrigendra Singh told the bench.

“My clients were arrested in Gujarat in connection with an FIR registered in Mumbai. But why weren’t they arrested in connection with the FIR registered against them two years ago? Everything was being monitored by the complainant’s husband who is the home minister in Maharashtra,” the lawyer contended.

However, advocate general Birendra Saraf for the state government and the Mumbai police claimed that the police had followed the procedure and there was no delay in taking the Jaisinghanis into custody.

The duo was detained at 5 pm on March 20 as per the arrest memo and was produced before the special court under the Prevention of Corruption Act at 11 am on March 21, he said. Saraf further said that as the travel time was to be excluded under CrPC and it was necessary to produce the Jaisinghanis before a competent magistrate, they were brought to Mumbai.

The petitioners’ counsel, Singh, refuted the travel time exclusion point and said it was to be part of the 24-hour limit.

After hearing the submissions, the bench rejected the Jaisinghanis’ petition.

Based on a complaint by Amruta Fadnavis, the Malabar Hill police on February 20 booked Anil and his daughter Aniksha for allegedly trying to bribe and blackmail the complainant after threatening to make public some audio and video clips that would make it appear that the latter was accepting favours from Aniksha.