Whereas praying for police remand in criminal cases is always suspiciously viewed by all concerned with the Criminal Justice System, it is expedient to share with the readers of Juris some legal views on the matter of granting the police remand.
A judge of the criminal courts in judicial or metropolitan magistracy while entertaining a petition for remanding an accused to the police custody has to ponder over the Case Docket submitted with the petition of police remand and the legal documents attached to the case record, eg FIR, charge sheet, statements of the witnesses recorded under section 161 of Criminal Procedure Code, post-mortem and inquest report, and the chronicles of orders given by the same court in different stages of that judicial proceeding in relation to investigation and cognizance regarding that criminal case.
Generally remand may be prayed and sought on the following basis:
To ascertain the nature of dispute To detect the course of action in the alleged occurrence To find out who were the accomplice of the alleged occurrence To find out documents/materials connected to the alleged offenceThe arguments for rejecting the remand prayer generally include the following points:
If remanded to police custody, the accused person will be subjected to inhuman physical and mental torture defying his fundamental rights and will suffer long custody period without trial. In such circumstances, there is no legal necessity to take the accused to the police remand for interrogation to explore the prima facie truth through investigation and involvement of different accused persons in the alleged offence in question.
The prime responsibility of the investigating officer of any case is to ascertain the fact that whether alleged accused persons should be recommended for trial being primarily liable for the alleged offences or not. More specifically, he has to find out the connection of the accused persons with the alleged offence. To that end, he shall act in accordance with the law and as per the procedure prescribed by law for conducting investigation of a criminal case. It should not be the priority of the concerned investigating officer to take the principal accused to police remand for interrogation with a view to explore the so called “necessary information” some of which are already traced out and some of which are of no legal necessity in relation to the quantum of investigation he is invested with.
Moreover, in criminal cases there is every option for the concerned investigating officer to pray for recording the judicial confession of an accused person if he/she wishes to confess his/her guilt voluntarily.
It is also argued that the prayer for remand has invariably become a tool for the investigating police officers to demand some undue monetary benefit from the family of the accused persons by threatening them to torture the accused persons while interrogating in camera.
The Honorable High Court Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court in the celebrated case of BLAST and others v Bangladesh and others delivered its judgment on April 7, 2003, observing that sections 54 and 167 of the CrPC are not fully consistent with the freedoms and safeguards which are guaranteed in the constitution. The court chalked out a comprehensive set of recommendations concerning necessary amendments to the sections of the CrPC, along with the Police Act, The Penal Code and the Evidence Act, and directed that these should be acted upon within six months.
Upon considering the above standpoints and analysing the circumstances and legal necessity if the court finds that the application on remanding the accused person to the police custody has legal essence and force of logic to be granted, the said prayer may be considered positively.
Conversely, upon perusal of the case record if the circumstances of the case do not justify detention of the accused in police custody at all, the court may not allow the prayer of remand. Nonetheless, any judge while disposing of any prayer of ‘remand’ must keep in his/her mind the citizens’ fundamental rights to life and liberty, to equal protection of law, to be treated in accordance with law and to be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment as guaranteed under articles 27, 31, 32, 33 and 35 of our constitution and the guidelines of our apex court on the police remand issue enunciated in the BLAST Case.