Arrest cannot be made merely because there are allegations: Bombay High Court

An arrest is a serious matter and cannot be made in a routine manner on mere allegations that an offence has been committed, the Bombay High Court observed recently [Mahesh Gala v. Union of India & Ors.]..A Division Bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Manjusha Deshpande made the observation while granting interim bail to one, Mahesh Gala, who was arrested in March by tax officers after being detained overnight.The fact that Gala was detained overnight before a formal arrest was made also drew censure from the Court. "We deprecate the practice of keeping a person overnight under the guise of recording of his statement, irrespective of whether the person volunteered or not. Arrest is a serious matter and cannot be made in a routine manner on a mere allegation of commission of an offence, inasmuch as, an arrest can cause incalculable harm to the reputation and self esteem of a person," the Court said in its May 10 order..By way of background, Gala had appeared before the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) office on the afternoon of March 13, in connection with a 2021 case filed against his company (Om Sai Nityanand Management Pvt Ltd) for alleged violations of the CGST Act. He was detained overnight at the office before he was formally arrested on March 14. He was produced before the magistrate for remand only on March 15 at 3.30 PM.He later approached the High Court to challenge his arrest, which he claimed was illegal. .Senior advocate Abad Ponda appeared for Gala and argued that there had been a delay in producing Gala before a magistrate, which the CGST officer failed to explain. The tax authorities replied that some of the delay was explained by the time taken to print copies of relevant GST returns concerning the case, which took around four hours. The Court, however, agreed with Ponda's stance that this reply was only an eyewash and an afterthought. "The time span mentioned by the respondent Nos. 1 to 3 for generating the GST returns and getting the Dowment Identification Number (DIN), prima facie appears to be an eyewash and appears to have been done to show, that the petitioner was produced within 24 hours ... Prima facie, we do not find, in the facts, that there was any reason for the respondent No. 2 to keep the petitioner (Gala) overnight, when he came on 13th March 2023, more particularly, if the respondent No. 2 did not have documents to question the petitioner," the Court held..The Court also pointed out that if the GST officers did not readily have all relevant documents with them, they could have called Gala for questioning another day instead of keeping him overnight at the CGST office. The Court proceeded to allow Gala’s release on interim bail for six weeks upon the payment of ₹25,000. The petition was listed for further hearing on June 24, 2024..Senior advocate Ponda (who represented the petitioner, Mahesh Gala) was assisted by advocates Hrishikesh Mundargi, Komal Joshi, Pushkraj Deshpande, Piyush Pandhare, Rohan Marathe and Yohaan Abraham briefed by ALMT Legal.Additional solicitor general Devang Vyas appeared along with advocates Jitendra B Mishra, Shilong Shah, Satyaprakash Sharma, Ashutosh Mishra and Rupesh Dubey for the GST authorities.Additional public prosecutor PP Shinde appeared for the State..[Read order]