An arrest made in violation of an interim order passed by the court is illegal.

ORDER :

Rakesh Kumar, J.

1. The petitioner, wife of detenue, approached this Court by filing the present Writ Petition, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, with a prayer to direct the respondents to produce her husband namely Makireddy Narasimha Murthy, aged about 61 years, before this Court, and set him free by declaring the action of respondent Nos. 4 and 5 i.e., the Station House Officer, Prathipadu Police Station, and Sri Sri K. Sudhakar, Sub-Inspector of Police, Prathipadu Police Station, East Godavari district, respectively, in searching the house of the petitioner and arresting her husband in violation of Sections 165, 100 and 50 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, 'the Cr.P.C.') and also in violation of Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner further prayed to direct the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 i.e., Director General of Police, State of Andhra Pradesh, and the Superintendent of Police, East Godavari District, respectively, to initiate action against the concerned official for indulging in the impugned illegal detention and searching the house of the petitioner.

2. In the Writ Petition it has been asserted that the husband of the petitioner, who is made an accused as abettor in FIR No. 270 of 2020, has filed a quash application, under Section 482 of Cr.P.C., vide Criminal Petition No. 4786 of 2020, before this Court challenging the FIR, wherein a single Bench of this Court by order, dated 22.10.2020, granted interim protection directing the respondent No. 4 not to take any coercive steps against the petitioner of quashing application i.e., husband of the present Writ Petitioner. The petitioner, in the Writ Petition, accepts that though order was passed on 22.10.2020, due to Dussehra vacation the order was not made ready by the Registry of this Court. A plea has been taken that some of the accused in the said FIR had filed separate Criminal Petitions and they were all granted interim orders by this Court and they had communicated the orders to respondent No. 4. On the preceding evening i.e., on 27.10.2020 at about 08:30 P.M., as alleged in the Writ Petition, while the interim order granted by this Court was subsisting, respondent No. 5, trespassed into the house of the petitioner along with ten (10) other Police officials and arrested her husband and without any warrant searched the entire house including washroom etc., for about one hour. After arresting, the husband of the petitioner was kept in Prathipadu Police Station. It has been reiterated that respondent No. 5, who was conscious of the fact that this Court had granted interim order against arrest of husband of the petitioner, however, excluding the order of this Court as well as in breach of Sections 50, 165 and 100 of the Cr.P.C. the house of the petitioner was searched and her husband was arrested. It has been alleged that no procedure was followed by the Police and much before production of the detenue before the Magistrate, the Police/respondents were intimated even through WhatsApp about the interim order passed by this Court in quashing application i.e., Criminal Petition No. 4786 of 2020.

3. In the case respondent No. 5 has filed an affidavit in his individual capacity and a plea has been taken that on the date of arrest, he was on bandobust duty and he simply stated that he was not connected with either arrest of the husband of the petitioner or production of the accused before the Magistrate.

4. In this Writ Petition, respondent No. 2, Director General of Police, himself has filed an affidavit and stated that none of the respondents/Police officials were aware about the order passed by this Court. Respondent No. 2 has further stated in its counter-affidavit that within 24 hours of the arrest of the husband of the petitioner, he was produced before the learned Magistrate on 28.10.2020 at about 02:30 P.M. and his detention was authorized by order of remand, passed by the learned Magistrate, and he was thereafter in j