The Tripura High Court has held sub‑inspector Saikat Dey of East Agartala Police Station guilty of contempt of court for breaching the Supreme Court’s arrest guidelines while taking a youth into custody in April 2026, and fined him Rs 2,000, warning that failure to pay within four weeks would attract one month’s simple imprisonment.
The contempt proceedings followed the arrest of the youth, identified as Saikat Saha, which the court found was allegedly made in violation of the safeguards set out in the Supreme Court’s Arnesh Kumar judgment on arrests.
A division bench of Chief Justice M.S. Ram Chandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit delivered the order on Thursday after reserving its verdict on June 17; the court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter on May 13 while hearing a criminal writ petition filed by the youth’s mother, Ratna Roy.
In her petition, Roy alleged that her son was unlawfully detained and physically assaulted following a dispute over construction of the family’s G+3 building. She said a neighbour had complained to the Agartala Municipal Corporation about plan deviations but that municipal authorities issued no adverse order after hearing the matter.
Roy further alleged that municipal employee Rabindranath Ghosh and Special Police Officer Joy Debnath demanded Rs 2 lakh to allow the construction to continue. When Saha refused, she said, he was assaulted outside the rented house on April 4 and later taken to East Agartala Police Station, where he was allegedly assaulted again. A preliminary inquiry and later medical examinations found injuries prima facie consistent with physical assault.
The High Court ordered preservation of CCTV footage from the police station and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by a deputy superintendent of police under IG‑rank supervision. The SIT reported CCTV evidence showing Saha being assaulted inside the station by Ghosh and Debnath after he was brought in by the respondent officer, and found material suggesting the assault followed a demand for Rs 2 lakh that Saha had refused.
Dey defended his actions by saying Saha was intoxicated and creating a public disturbance and therefore required preventive detention under the Tripura Police Act and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. The bench, however, found significant inconsistencies between the officer’s account, police records, general diary entries and the SIT findings, and noted that the medical report relied on by the officer referred only to intoxication and did not mention injuries later documented.
The court held that Dey failed to follow the mandatory arrest procedure prescribed in Arnesh Kumar and, as the senior officer present, failed to prevent the alleged assault inside the station. Finding him guilty of contempt, the High Court ordered the Rs 2,000 fine to be deposited within four weeks and closed the contempt proceedings.
Original Source: https://nenow.in/north-east-news/tripura/tripura-high-court-fines-police-officer-for-violating-supreme-court-arrest-guidelines.html
Category: Northeast News,Top News,Tripura
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Publish Date: 2026-07-02 22:15:00
