Rs 5 lakh within two weeks, strict action against a sub-inspector, and a remand Magistrate’s conduct sent to the High Court’s Administrative Committee: that is the Bombay High Court’s answer to an arrest made before the notice the law required, followed by a remand without reasons.
Mumbai: The August 2017 arrest of a man on an extortion FIR was unlawful, the Bombay High Court has declared, directing the State of Maharashtra to pay him Rs 5,00,000 within two weeks as compensation for illegal arrest. Strict action has been asked against the police sub-inspector and other officers concerned, and the judgment is to go before the High Court’s Administrative Committee for action against the Magistrate who permitted his police and judicial custody [Bipin Satish Chandra Agrwal v. State of Maharashtra and Another].
Justice Kamal Khata wrote the judgment allowing the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, for a Division Bench that also included Justice A. S. Gadkari. It was reserved on August 20, 2026 and pronounced on October 22, 2026.
Compensation, and the officers
“The State shall pay compensation to the Petitioner in the sum of Rs.5,00,000/- on account of the unlawful arrest and detention for six days in police custody and for twenty days in judicial custody within a period of two weeks from the date of uploading of the Order on the official website of the High Court of Bombay.”
The Court ordered strict action, including immediate suspension, against the Sub-Inspector and all concerned officers, and said the State may, if so advised, recover proportionate compensation from their salaries. Criminal Application No. 32 of 2018, filed by the developer for intervention, was disposed of.
An advance at Marine Lines, and handcuffs
Bipin Agrwal held the power of attorney of his mother-in-law, a senior citizen who owned a flat in an Andheri East society then being redeveloped by M/s Seth and Sonal Developers. His petition says that on August 4, 2017 he met the developers at their Marine Lines office to negotiate the sale of the flat for about Rs 1.64 crore, was given an advance of Rs 2,00,000, and was handcuffed by police the moment he accepted it. The developers lodged FIR No. 243 of 2017 at Azad Maidan Police Station under Section 384 of the Indian Penal Code (extortion), an offence with a maximum sentence of three years.
A Section 41A CrPC notice reached him at around 8.20 pm, after the arrest. He was produced before the 64th Court, Mumbai on August 5, 2017 and remanded to police custody, which was later extended; on August 10 he was sent to judicial custody. The Sessions Court granted him bail on August 28, 2017. Mahesh Lamkhade, then a Sub-Inspector at Azad Maidan Police Station, contested the petition. Through counsel he argued that he had complied with the Bombay Police Manual and that the Magistrate’s remand order had ratified the arrest, and the State opposed the plea as well.
Where the record did not add up
On the record before it, the Bench called the arrest and remand “high handed, arbitrary and made without application of mind and without following the basic statutory provisions of law.” The Station Diary, the FIR and the Arrest Form did not agree with one another. The FIR was registered after the arrest; the arrest form bore a date overwritten from August 5 to August 4; the medical examination column was blank, and so was the column for grounds of arrest. The Court also noted an RTI reply stating that no written complaint dated June 23, 2017 had been received, and that a voice-sample forensic report came back on the very day it was dispatched.
“Evidently, the arrest was prior to the Notice and therefore undoubtedly illegal under the well-settled law.”
Questioning a person is not a ground for arresting him, the Court held, and compliance with Section 41A was not shown for an offence carrying a maximum of three years. Citing Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) 8 SCC 273 and Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, it found that the police had no satisfactory answer on why the arrest was necessary. The police, it further observed, had tried to paint the petitioner as an extortionist “without having an iota of evidence”, and on the material before it the Court concluded that the Sub-Inspector acted in connivance with the developer. These are the Court’s findings on the record in the writ proceedings.
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The Magistrate who signed the remand
In the Bench’s view, the Magistrate shared responsibility for the wrongful detention: no reasons were recorded for continuing remand, and the Magistrate “failed to independently apply his mind.” The Registry must therefore place the judgment before the Administrative Committee for appropriate action against the Magistrate(s) of the 64th Court who dealt with remand and bail on August 5, 8, 10, 16 and 22, 2017.
The rules the judgment restates
Arrest is not routine for offences punishable up to three years. The police must first show, on recorded material, why custody is needed, and a Section 41A notice cannot be served after the arrest has been made. The remand Magistrate, the judgment indicates, is a constitutional safeguard and not a formality, a point that bears on every lower court that signs remand orders without giving reasons.
What the Court said about the police and the developer are findings in this writ proceeding, made on the documents before it. This judgment does not decide the extortion case that followed the FIR, nor does it adjudicate any other dispute between the parties.
Case Title: Bipin Satish Chandra Agrwal v. State of Maharashtra and Another [Writ Petition No. 4458 of 2017, with Criminal Application No. 32 of 2018]
Bench: Justice Kamal Khata and Justice A. S. Gadkari, Bombay High Court
Date of Judgment: October 22, 2026 (reserved August 20, 2026)
Appearances: Bipin Agrwal, Petitioner in person; J. P. Yagnik, APP, for the State; Anvay Pawar with Yuvraj Tidke for Respondent No. 2