The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently addressed a vital boundary line regarding constitutional remedies, ruling that a Habeas Corpus petition is not maintainable when a person is in statutory custody under multiple First Information Reports (FIRs) that disclose cognizable offences.
The Bench, comprising Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Ratnesh Chandra Singh Bisen, clarified that while Habeas Corpus is a powerful shield against illegal detention, it cannot be used to bypass ordinary criminal courts when a person is locked up under regular legal processes.
The petitioner approached the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, claiming he was trapped in a cycle of “indefinite imprisonment” engineered by the State machinery.
The petitioner’s legal battle began in August 2021, when he was taken into police custody following a violent altercation. The state authorities registered a case against him for attempt to murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). This initial arrest set off a continuous chain of incarceration that would keep him behind bars for years, shifting his legal battle from a standard criminal defense into a complex fight over constitutional liberties.
While the petitioner was still held in jail for the initial assault case, the State executive machinery took a much harsher turn by invoking preventive detention measures. On three separate occasions specifically in August 2021, April 2022, and January 2023 the state authorities slammed him with back-to-back detention orders under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), 1980. This allowed the administration to justify his continued confinement without relying on the progression of the regular criminal trial.
Under the structural checks and balances built into the National Security Act, these exceptional preventive detention orders cannot remain active indefinitely without independent administrative review. In this case, all three NSA directives eventually collapsed. When the orders were sent up for mandatory review, they fell flat after failing to clear or get approval from the State Advisory Board. Consequently, the board officially revoked the executive detention orders, effectively ruling that the state’s grounds for preventive custody were legally unsustainable.
Despite winning these major victories before the Advisory Board and managing to secure regular bail in several of the primary matters, the petitioner found himself trapped in a revolving door of judicial custody. He argued before the High Court that the police were deliberately keeping him behind bars through a calculated strategy of registering “serial FIRs.” Every time he was on the verge of release, law enforcement would dig up old, past incidents to register fresh, back-dated FIRs alleging various cognizable offences. This cycle of consecutive remands effectively neutralized his bail orders and resulted in what he termed an unconstitutional, engineered layout of indefinite imprisonment.
The petitioner argued that this sequential pattern of keeping him under constant restraint violated his Fundamental Rights under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. He asserted that this continuous custody amounted to illegal confinement, making a Habeas Corpus writ necessary to secure his freedom.
The State took a strict jurisdictional objection. The Advocate General argued that regardless of the number of FIRs or the petitioner’s claims of harassment, his current confinement was strictly “statutory custody” meaning he was being held under valid, legal orders of a criminal court following arrests for actual offences. Under settled law, if an arrest is made under the Code of Criminal Procedure (now Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita/BNSS) for cognizable crimes, it cannot be labeled “unlawful or illegal detention.”
The Division Bench dismissed the plea for a Habeas Corpus writ. The judges pointed out that since the previous NSA preventive detention orders had already been revoked, the petitioner wasn’t being held by an arbitrary executive order anymore. His current jail stay was entirely due to the active criminal cases against him.
The Court noted:
Since the petitioner is under statutory arrest on account of registration of different FIRs, disclosing a cognizable offence, such relief cannot be granted by this Court in the form and nature of a writ of Habeas Corpus.
The Bench emphasized that the right remedy for someone facing multiple criminal charges is to move standard bail applications before the competent criminal courts, rather than attempting to jump the ladder by filing an extraordinary writ petition in the High Court.
The High Court’s ruling sits firmly upon Supreme Court precedents establishing that judicial custody can almost never trigger a Habeas Corpus remedy.
In state of M.P. v. Kusum Sahu foundational ruling, which the MP High Court heavily relied upon to dismiss the current petition, the Supreme Court laid down the law clearly:
“A writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted when a person is committed to judicial custody or police custody by a competent court by an order which prima facie does not lack jurisdiction. Confinement pursuant to a legal remand order cannot be termed as illegal detention.”
In another key judgment of Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) v. Rahul Modi (Supreme Court) handling similar questions about the legality of custody, the Supreme Court noted:
“The law is well-settled that if the detention of the accused is based on a valid order of remand passed by a Magistrate having jurisdiction, a writ of Habeas Corpus would not be maintainable. The act of directing remand is a judicial function, and a judicial order cannot be questioned through a writ of Habeas Corpus.”
Even though the High Court stood firm on the strict jurisdictional limits of Habeas Corpus and refused to order the petitioner’s immediate release, the Division Bench chose not to turn a blind eye to the troubling pattern of his arrests. The judges recognized that while each individual FIR might technically meet legal standards on paper, using a relentless, consecutive sequence of fresh cases to trap a citizen in a revolving door of jail custody poses a real threat to the spirit of personal liberty. By acknowledging the clear potential for procedural harassment and state overreach, the Court signaled that the administration cannot use ordinary criminal procedures as a tool for unchecked malafide intention.
To address this delicate balance between effective law enforcement and fundamental fairness, the High Court partially allowed the petition by crafting a set of strict, protective procedural safeguards. The Bench recognized that a major source of injustice in these scenarios is the element of surprise, which leaves the accused completely defenseless against sudden, unknown charges. By stepping in to regulate how the police handle future actions against the petitioner and his relatives, the Court ensured that the state machinery remains entirely transparent and answerable to constitutional oversight, even when operating under normal criminal laws.
The first major safeguard established by the Court was an absolute mandate for full disclosure. The Bench ordered the state authorities to compile and immediately hand over a comprehensive, exhaustive list of every single active criminal case currently registered against the petitioner, as well as those filed against his family members. This directive directly dismantled the police strategy of holding back older, unrevealed complaints to use as immediate re-arrest triggers. By forcing the State to lay all its cards on the table, the Court gave the petitioner the necessary clarity to understand the full scope of the allegations against him and systematically prepare his legal defense before the appropriate bail courts.
In addition to uncovering existing cases, the High Court put in place a strict forward-looking restriction known as the “24-Hour Rule” to prevent any future procedural ambushes. The Bench ruled that if law enforcement registers any new FIR against the petitioner or his family members going forward, they are legally obligated to officially communicate the full details of that case to them within 24 hours of its registration. This rapid-notification requirement ensures that the petitioner or his family cannot be kept in the dark or quietly arrested inside jail walls before they have had a fair opportunity to seek legal counsel, approach a judge for anticipatory bail, or challenge the basis of the new accusations.
This ensures that while the petitioner must fight his battles through regular bail courts, the police cannot surprise him with hidden cases to block his release.
