The Central government recently apprised the Bombay High Court of its ongoing efforts to prevent overnight detention of individuals solely for interrogation purposes.

A division bench comprising Justices Revait Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan mentioned the submission and directed the government to present any relevant guidelines at the next hearing.

"At this stage, the Counsel states that the Central Government is taking appropriate steps to ensure that the persons are not detained overnight for the purpose of interrogation. Statement accepted. The Counsel further states that the appropriate guidelines will be issued by the concerned Ministry or the Department. The said guidelines, if issued by the next date, be placed before us," the bench recorded in its ordered passed on September 24.

This development occurred as the bench upheld the interim bail granted to Mahesh Gala, who had been subjected to 50 hours of questioning before his arrest by the Goods & Service Tax (GST) Commissioner in a criminal case earlier this March.

Notably, the petitioner, Mahesh Gala, was granted interim bail in May 2024 by the bench, which observed that the investigation had been ongoing since 2017, with Gala consistently cooperating with the probe team. It further noted that his arrest took place only in March 2024.

The petitioner claimed that he entered the Versova-based CGST office on March 13, 2024, at 1:30 PM but was formally shown as arrested only after 1:30 PM on March 15, 2024. He alleged that CGST officials subjected him to nearly 50 hours of illegal detention during this period. However, the CGST officers refuted this claim, asserting that the petitioner had been officially arrested on March 14. They explained that the delay was due to the time required for generating certain documents.

The bench, headed by Justice Mohite-Dere, criticized the department for detaining the petitioner overnight to record his statements. It remarked that, given the petitioner’s prior cooperation with the investigation, he could have been summoned on another day for questioning.

"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 judges had said on May 10, 2024 while granting interim bail to the petitioner.

The matter is scheduled for hearing on December 3, when the department is anticipated to present the guidelines of the Central Government.

Advocates Hrishikesh Mundargi, Pushkraj Deshpande, Rohan Marathe instructed by ALMT Legal appeared for the Petitioner.

Advocates Jitendra Mishra, Satyaprakash Sharma, Ashutosh Mishra, Rupesh Dubey, Saket Katkar and Harpreet Kaur Sethi represented the Central Government

Additional Public Prosecutor KV Saste represented the State.

Case Details: Mahesh Gala vs Union of India (Criminal Writ Petition 938 of 2024)