Introduction:

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken a serious view of what it described as the failure of the police and administrative authorities of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to demonstrate actual compliance with the safeguards laid down by the Supreme Court against unnecessary arrests. Justice Sudeepti Sharma, while hearing a batch of contempt petitions in Sandeep Kumar v. Pankaj Nain, IPS and Others, observed that the affidavits filed by senior police and administrative officials merely projected compliance on paper while failing to establish that the safeguards were actually being followed at police stations.

The Court was particularly critical of the fact that the authorities had once again relied upon standard operating procedures (SOPs), despite the Court having specifically required them to explain how the directions of the Supreme Court were being implemented in practice. Describing the exercise as “nothing but… a farce exercise which looks rosy on surface but is far from the actual realities”, the Court emphasised that the existence of written instructions cannot by itself establish compliance with judicial directions.

The proceedings arise from allegations that the safeguards against arbitrary and unnecessary arrest, originally laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, have not been followed in their true letter and spirit. The safeguards are particularly important in offences punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years, where the law requires the police to carefully examine whether arrest is actually necessary rather than treating arrest as an automatic consequence of registration of a criminal case.

The Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar had issued specific directions to prevent routine arrests and mechanical remand orders. The Court had emphasised that the power to arrest must be exercised with restraint and that the police must satisfy the statutory requirements before making an arrest. Magistrates were also directed not to authorise detention mechanically without examining whether the requirements governing arrest had been fulfilled.

The statutory framework referred to in these proceedings originally operated through Section 41 and Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Section 41A provided for the issuance of a notice of appearance where arrest was not required. With the enactment of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the corresponding framework is now contained in Section 35 of the BNSS.

The safeguards were subsequently elaborated through judicial decisions. The Delhi High Court, in Amandeep Singh Johar v. State of NCT of Delhi, prescribed a detailed procedure concerning notices under Section 41A CrPC, including safeguards intended to ensure that the issuance and service of such notices could be properly verified. The procedure subsequently informed a Delhi Police Standing Order.

The Supreme Court later revisited the broader issue in Satender Kumar Antil v. Central Bureau of Investigation, decided in 2022. While laying down comprehensive directions concerning arrest, bail and related procedures, the Supreme Court directed all States and Union Territories to issue appropriate standing orders concerning the procedure under Sections 41 and 41A CrPC. The purpose was not merely to have rules on paper but to institutionalise a system through which the safeguards against unnecessary arrest could operate effectively.

Against this legal background, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, on September 9, 2026, required the Directors General of Police and Chief Secretaries of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to place specific material before it demonstrating compliance with paragraph 73(d) of Satender Kumar Antil. The Court also required the authorities to place on record the proformas being used for notices under Section 41A and the corresponding acknowledgments.

The subsequent affidavits, however, failed to satisfy the Court. Instead of demonstrating how the mechanism was functioning in individual police stations and criminal investigations, the authorities primarily relied upon SOPs and administrative instructions that were already available on the record.

The Court therefore decided that the question of compliance could no longer be examined merely through official assurances. It directed the concerned Station House Officers of Police Station Phase-I, Mohali, Police Station Sector 11, Chandigarh, and Police Station Sector 5, Panchkula, to personally appear before it along with actual police records demonstrating how notices under the arrest safeguards were being issued, served, preserved and acted upon.

The order thus places emphasis on the distinction between formal compliance and operational compliance. The Court’s concern was not whether the authorities had framed rules, but whether investigating officers were actually following those rules in day-to-day criminal investigations.

Arguments of the Parties:

The proceedings were considered in the presence of Senior Advocate Ankur Mittal, who was assisting the Court as amicus curiae. His submissions focused on the gap between the material the Court had specifically sought and the material actually filed by the authorities.

The amicus submitted that the Court’s earlier order had required the three jurisdictions to address two distinct issues. First, they had to demonstrate how the directions contained in Satender Kumar Antil were being implemented in their respective jurisdictions in the “true letter and spirit”. Second, they were required to place before the Court the actual proformas used for Section 41A notices and acknowledgments.

According to the amicus, the authorities had not complied with that requirement in substance. Instead, they had adopted what he described as the “same old bureaucratic approach” by relying upon SOPs and standing instructions which had already been placed before the Court. Merely producing an SOP, he submitted, could not answer the question whether police officers were actually following the prescribed procedure while investigating criminal cases.

The amicus further drew the Court’s attention to the documents accompanying the contempt petitions themselves. Those documents, according to his submission, provided a more realistic picture of what was occurring at the operational level than the affidavits filed by the senior officials.

He pointed out that several notices placed before the Court did not appear to conform to the prescribed format. In some instances, the notices allegedly lacked serial numbers or proper reference particulars. In other cases, there was no acknowledgment demonstrating that the accused had actually received the notice.

The amicus also highlighted instances in which notices had allegedly been sent through WhatsApp. The issue was not merely whether communication through a digital platform could ever constitute service, but whether such alleged service complied with the prescribed mechanism and whether there existed a verifiable record of service and acknowledgment in the manner contemplated by the safeguards.

According to the amicus, the responses filed by the authorities did not adequately address the specific notices and cases relied upon in the contempt proceedings. Rather than explaining whether those notices were properly issued, served and recorded, the authorities had responded at a general administrative level.

The Court’s scrutiny therefore moved from the existence of official rules to the actual implementation of those rules. The material before the Court raised questions regarding whether investigating officers were maintaining proper records of notices, whether acknowledgments were being obtained and preserved, whether notices could be traced to individual investigations, and whether the arrest of a person despite issuance of a notice was supported by recorded reasons.

The State and administrative authorities, on the other hand, had placed their reliance upon the SOPs and mechanisms framed pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions. The affidavits filed by the senior officials were intended to demonstrate that the respective administrations had put in place procedures for compliance with the arrest safeguards.

The existence of such administrative instructions, however, became insufficient in the Court’s view because the September 9 order had specifically called for material showing actual implementation. The authorities’ position, as reflected through the compliance affidavits, was therefore tested against the concrete documents forming part of the record.

The Court was particularly concerned that the affidavits had been filed by officers holding senior positions but were accompanied by annexures that were not even properly legible. The Court observed that when the issue before it concerns compliance with safeguards intended to protect individual liberty, the quality and verifiability of the records assume considerable importance.

The Court’s observations indicate that the dispute was not about the validity of the SOPs themselves. Rather, the central issue was whether the SOPs had translated into a functioning system at the police-station level. The amicus’s submissions consequently invited the Court to examine the actual records maintained by investigating officers and Station House Officers instead of accepting general statements of compliance.

This distinction is particularly significant because the safeguards under Arnesh Kumar and Satender Kumar Antil are designed to operate at the earliest stage of a criminal investigation. Their effectiveness depends upon the investigating officer making a genuine assessment regarding the necessity of arrest and properly documenting the decision. A written policy which is not reflected in case diaries, notices, acknowledgments and arrest records cannot by itself establish meaningful compliance.

Court’s Judgment:

After considering the submissions and examining the material placed before it, the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected the compliance affidavits filed by the authorities as insufficient to establish actual implementation of the Supreme Court’s directions.

Justice Sudeepti Sharma observed that the contrast between the compliance projected in the affidavits and the material actually available before the Court “pricks the judicial conscience”. The Court held that the issue therefore required a deeper examination at the “operational level”.

The Court made it clear that its earlier order dated September 9, 2026, had not asked the authorities merely to reproduce or attach the SOPs already governing the procedure. The direction required the States and the Union Territory to demonstrate the mechanism through which those instructions were actually being implemented.

The distinction is important in the context of personal liberty. The Supreme Court’s decision in Arnesh Kumar was intended to address the recurring problem of unnecessary arrests in cases where the maximum punishment prescribed does not exceed seven years. The judgment recognised that arrest has serious consequences for an individual and cannot be treated as a routine investigative step.

Section 41 CrPC contains conditions governing when a police officer may arrest without a warrant. Section 41A, meanwhile, contemplated the issuance of a notice of appearance where arrest was not required. The scheme therefore seeks to place a legal obligation on the investigating agency to consider necessity before resorting to arrest.

The Supreme Court’s directions in Arnesh Kumar were subsequently reinforced in Satender Kumar Antil. The latter judgment required States and Union Territories to formulate appropriate standing orders concerning the procedure under Sections 41 and 41A. The object was to ensure uniformity and accountability in the implementation of safeguards concerning arrest and detention.

The High Court’s present order demonstrates that, in its view, the existence of such standing orders cannot be treated as the end of the compliance exercise. If the prescribed notices are not properly issued, if acknowledgments are unavailable, or if the records necessary to establish service and subsequent action are not maintained, the existence of an SOP would have little practical significance.

The Court therefore identified the precise operational information it wanted the police authorities to produce. One important aspect concerned the availability of duly indexed booklets containing serially numbered notices. The Court wanted to know whether such booklets were actually issued by every SHO to investigating officers, whether they were maintained in duplicate or another contemporaneously verifiable format, and whether the use of each notice could subsequently be traced.

The Court also required information about what happened to used notice booklets. It wanted the authorities to explain whether the booklets were deposited back with the SHO and how they were preserved until the filing of the final report under Section 173(2) CrPC, or the corresponding provision under Section 193(3) BNSS.

This requirement reflects the Court’s concern about the evidentiary chain surrounding a notice. If an investigating officer claims that a notice was issued to an accused, there should be a reliable record demonstrating when it was issued, under what case, in what serial sequence, how it was served and whether the recipient acknowledged it. Such a system can also make it possible to verify whether the notice was genuinely issued contemporaneously or merely produced later to demonstrate formal compliance.

The Court further sought clarity regarding the rules governing preservation, retrieval, destruction and archiving of used notice booklets, notices and acknowledgments. This was considered necessary because compliance cannot effectively be examined if the underlying records are not preserved for a meaningful period.

To test the actual position on the ground, the Court directed the SHOs of three specific police stations to personally appear. These were Police Station Phase-I, Mohali, Police Station Sector 11, Chandigarh, and Police Station Sector 5, Panchkula.

The Court directed that the concerned SHOs must produce records for the period after the respective SOPs of the State or Union Territory had been issued. This temporal requirement was intended to test whether the claimed administrative mechanisms had actually been operationalised after the authorities formally adopted them.

Among the records sought by the Court were indexed booklets of serially numbered notices in triplicate carbon-copy format. The Court also required carbon copies of the notices actually issued, together with the case diaries in which the relevant records were retained.

The Court further required proof of acknowledgment in the prescribed format and year-wise registers maintained at the police stations recording notices issued by investigating officers. These requirements are directed towards creating a verifiable trail from the issuance of a notice to its ultimate use in a criminal investigation.

The Court also sought proof of actual service of each notice, including the corresponding acknowledgment. This requirement directly addresses the problem identified by the amicus, namely that documents described as notices may exist without reliable evidence showing that they were actually served upon the concerned person.

Another significant requirement concerns cases in which an arrest took place despite a notice having been issued and complied with. The Court directed that a separate statement be produced identifying such cases, along with the reasons recorded for the arrest, the supporting material and the documents placed before the Magistrate.

This aspect goes to the heart of the Arnesh Kumar safeguards. Issuance of a notice does not create an absolute prohibition against subsequent arrest. However, where arrest follows, the investigating agency must be able to demonstrate why arrest became necessary and what material supported that decision. A record-based explanation allows the Court to distinguish between a genuine decision based on the statutory criteria and a routine arrest undertaken despite the earlier notice.

The Court also directed the production of case files in which an arrest was made without issuing a notice. Such files would have to contain the reasons and material justifying the decision to arrest without the benefit of the notice procedure.

This direction is significant because the safeguards operate not only through the physical form of a notice but also through the decision-making process preceding arrest. If a notice was not issued, the investigating agency must still be able to demonstrate why the circumstances justified immediate arrest.

The three Directors General of Police were directed to ensure the appearance of the concerned SHOs and production of the relevant records. They were also directed to place before the Court the rules governing preservation and destruction of used notice booklets.

The Court further directed that the SHOs appearing before it must be “well versed” with the actual procedure being followed at their respective police stations. This makes clear that the Court expects the senior station-level officer not merely to produce documents but to explain the functioning of the system in practice.

The Court’s observations also carry an institutional message. Compliance with a judicial direction cannot be established simply by demonstrating that a department has issued instructions to subordinate officers. Where the direction concerns the protection of personal liberty, the authorities must be able to demonstrate that the mechanism is functioning in individual cases.

The Court’s reliance on the principles emerging from Arnesh Kumar, Amandeep Singh Johar and Satender Kumar Antil places the present proceedings within a continuing judicial effort to make safeguards against unnecessary arrest operational. The progression of these decisions demonstrates that the concern is not limited to declaring legal principles. It also extends to developing practical procedures capable of being verified and audited.

The transition from Section 41A CrPC to the corresponding framework under Section 35 of the BNSS does not dilute the underlying concern. The procedural framework governing arrest continues to require adherence to statutory safeguards, and the Court’s present inquiry focuses on whether those safeguards are being implemented in a manner that can be objectively demonstrated through official records.

The High Court therefore declined to accept the affidavits as sufficient proof of compliance and ordered a direct examination of police-station records. Its observation that the existing exercise was “far from the actual realities” reflects the Court’s conclusion that formal administrative compliance and practical compliance cannot be treated as interchangeable.

The matter has now been adjourned to September 29, 2026. On that date, the Court is expected to examine the records produced by the three police stations and the explanations of the concerned SHOs. The material may provide the Court with a clearer picture of whether the safeguards concerning notices, acknowledgments, arrest decisions and record preservation are actually functioning at the ground level.

The order thus reinforces a fundamental principle underlying the law of arrest: safeguards protecting personal liberty must operate in practice, not merely exist in departmental files. By requiring actual notices, registers, case diaries, acknowledgments and arrest records to be produced, the High Court has shifted the focus from assurances of compliance to evidence of compliance. The further proceedings will determinewhether the systems claimed by the three jurisdictions