How can a police officer aver that accused will abscond because he is a ‘North Indian?’ questions Madras High Court

The Madras High Court has expressed its strong disapproval to an averment made by an Inspector of Police that the accused in a criminal case was likely to abscond because he is a “North Indian.” The court said, such an averment ought not to have appeared in an affidavit sworn by a police officer.

While granting bail to Ankur Kumar Jain of FIIT-JEE in a cheating case booked by Coimbatore police, Justice N. Ramesh wrote: “The averment that the petitioner is likely to abscond because he is ‘a North Indian’ is not appreciated. A person’s place of origin is not a ground for apprehending that he will flee.”

He went on to highlight that the petitioner had lived and worked in Chennai for more than two decades and said that the latter was entitled to bail for the sole reason that the police had miserably failed to furnish the grounds of arrest to him in a language that he can read and understand.

The judge pointed out that an arrest memo served on the petitioner in Tamil, a language that he could not read, too did not contain the grounds of arrest. The consequences of the police failing to follow the arrest procedures scrupulously are serious and it ends up going in favour of the accused, he said.

“In very serious cases, accused persons are being released not because the case against them is weak but because the police did not do what the law requires at the moment of arrest. The persons who suffer are the victims… and the cause of a fair investigation,” the judge wrote.

Observing that it was not clear whether such lapses by the police were the result of ignorance or indifference, Justice Ramesh said, either way, the police need to be sensitised, trained and educated on this issue, and the officers who commit such lapses must be made accountable.

The judge, suo motu, impleaded the Director General of Police (Law and Order) as one of the respondents to the bail petition and directed the head of the police force to explain whether any circular or standing order had been issued instructing the police officers regarding issuance of written grounds of arrest.

The court also wanted to know whether any training or sensitisation sessions had been conducted in the past or were proposed to be conducted in the future regarding the need to issue grounds of arrest. It directed the DGP to warn police officers that failure to issue grounds of arrest would lead to departmental proceedings.

The High Court Registry was directed to list the matter next on November 10, 2026 for the DGP to report compliance.