HC summons Patna SSP, SHO for searching lawyer’s residence without warrant
2 min readPATNA: The Patna high court on Monday summoned the Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) and Rupaspur police station house officer (SHO) for conducting a search at high court lawyer Indeshwari Prasad Mandal’s residence in his absence without any search warrant and misbehaving with his wife.
The vacation bench of Justice Birendra Kumar ordered the SSP and the SHO to remain present before the court at 10.30am on Tuesday and explain that under what circumstances the search was conducted.
Senior advocate Yogesh Chandra Verma said a police team headed by Rupaspur police station SHO barged inside private house of Mandal located at Dhanaut under Rupaspur police station area in the city on wee hours of May 26 while he was in Bhagalpur.
“Police conducted the search suspecting that a criminal from Bhagalpur might had reached Mandal’s residence to seek his help for anticipatory bail from court,” Verma said.
“Only Mandal’s wife Sunita Kumari was present at that time with whom the police misbehaved and snatched her cellphone when she tried to record the search which was conducted without any proper warrant. The files of lawyer were also searched by police during the search,” he said.
“The couple’s hand written petition addressed to Chief Justice Rajendra Menon expressing their grievance was submitted before the single bench on Monday which treated it as a criminal writ petition and summoned the SSP and the SHO,” he said.
Verma said lawyers meet several kind of people including criminals and it doesn’t means that police, showing highhandedness, would conduct a raid that too without any warrant on suspicion that an accused might had reached to seek legal help.
“An accused can’t be arrested from a lawyer’s chamber or inside court premises. Under provision of Evidence Act, police can’t quiz to know communication between a client and lawyer while under Article 22 of constitution, every citizen has right to get defended by lawyer of his/her choice,” he added.
Courtesy: TNN
