Religion and the comments over it have always attracted a crowd. On March 21,2023 a Bengaluru magistrate’s court remanded actor Chetan Kumar ‘Ahimsa’ to judicial custody for 14 days. This action comes after a FIR instituted u/s 295 A and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),both of which are punishable by improvement which may extend to three years or with fine or both.

The FIR was a result of the tweet by the Actor wherein the language used was promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes outraging the religious feelings and beliefs of the Hindu population. While justifying the grounds of arrest of the said actor, the court provided the following grounds: 

• to prevent a person from committing any further offence;
•  for proper investigation of the         offence;
• to prevent the accused from causing evidence to disappear;
• to prevent the accused from tampering the evidence or offering inducement threat or promise to the witness so as to dissuade  him from disclosing such facts to the court or to the police officer,
• or unless such person is arrested, his presence in the court whenever required cannot be ensured.

Although the police officer is not required to record her or his reasons for making an arrest, the decision undoubtedly has to be based on one or more of the five grounds mentioned above for the satisfaction of section 167(3) of CrPC and then the judicial custody can be ordered. 

Furthermore, the court referred the case of Arnesh Kumar, wherein it was said that endeavour should be made so as to not allow any police officer to arrest an accused person unnecessarily and that magistrates do not authorise detention casually and mechanically.