Short Answer – He cannot! Why? For that you need to go to your 6th Grade Civics textbook which you may have forgotten all about by now.
In a democracy, there is separation of powers between the Executive, Legislature, and the Judiciary. While the Executive governs the country via the many branches, it does not pronounce punishments. The law enforcement agencies, which should function independently, carry out the punitive orders that the courts give. In India, the police can arrest anyone without a warrant mainly for the Cognizable offences. However, under Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a person can be arrested for non-cognizable offence as well.
Cognizable offence means an offence wherein a Police officer can arrest without warrant. They are generally offences of serious nature like murder, kidnapping, offences of waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting the waging of war against the government of India, rioting armed with deadly weapon etc. The definition given under Section 2(c) of the Criminal Procedure Code is :
” cognizable offence” means an offence for which, and” cognizable case” means a case in which, a police officer may, in accordance with the First Schedule or under any other law for the time being in force, arrest without warrant.”
Or the arrest can be made without a warrant under Section 41 or the Criminal Procedure Code for non-cognizable offence as well for the following reasons.
- a person has an implement of housebreaking without reason;
- a person who is proclaimed an offender under the CrPC or is by the State;
- a person in whose possession anything is found which may reasonably be suspected to be stolen property and who may reasonably be suspected of having committed an offence with reference to the same;
- a person who obstructs a police officer while in the execution of his duty, or who has escaped, or attempts to escape, from lawful custody;
- a person who is reasonable suspected of being a deserter from any of the Armed Force;
- a person who is reasonably suspected of committing an act abroad which would be an offence in India;
- a person who, being a release convict, commits a breach of the conditions of his release;
- a person for whose arrest any requisition, whether written or oral, has been received from another police officer, provided that the requisition specifies the person to be arrested and the offence or other cause for which the arrest is to be made and it appears there from that the person might lawfully be arrested without a warrant by the officer who issued the requisition
Beyond these police needs to get the courts to grant a warrant before the arrests/ While police are required to obtain a court-issued arrest warrant for those individuals implicated in non-cognizable offences, they are not required to do so for those implicated in cognizable offenses. But then you have to see that proving cognizable offences is also not easy.
UPA’s Deep Web of Unscrupulous Roadblocks and the Fight for Justice
In the Coal scam, when in April 2013 CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) asked the Coal ministry for the files – which were critical for investigation into the coal block allocation scam. The CBI was told that they were missing! These files contained 13 FIRs which had been registered for 13 controversial coal block allocations. What was initially set to be 157 files for 1993-2004 and then 250 files from 2006-2009! That has been the way of the UPA Government.
Karti Chidambaram’s Scam Money: On September 22, 2017, the CBI informed the Supreme Court that when recently Karti Chidambaram went to the UK due to the leverage given by the Court, he closed his foreign bank accounts and moved the monies to another account!
“CBI had asked him about his foreign bank accounts. He’d replied that he had only one. But probe by the Financial Intelligence Unit revealed Karti, during his visit abroad, had closed five or six foreign bank accounts after transferring the monies,” additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud. Waving sealed envelopes purportedly containing details of Karti’s activities in the UK in June, Mehta added, “The documents we received a few days back during investigation makes it clear what happened during Karti Chidambaram’s last visit abroad. These documents reveal shocking facts.”
When this scamster was in UK doing his dirty business, the Modi Government had their sleuths following and getting the information of his accounts and transfers. But in this world of democracy where Courts make the decision and the laws and rules can be worked any which way – Karti Chidambaram is being defended by a battery of lawyers who were also Congress Ministers!
However, his attempt to submit the investigation report to the judges was obstructed by Karti’s counsel Kapil Sibal, who said the CBI could not pass on evidence unrelated to the issue being heard — validity of the lookout notice which debarred his client from going abroad.
“Are these purported evidence part of any investigation conducted pursuant to any FIR? The answer is clearly ‘no’. Karti is ready to face prosecution if the CBI lodges an FIR and submits the so-called evidence purportedly put inside these sealed envelopes. Otherwise, it is just vindictiveness to harass Karti aiming indirectly to trouble his father, mother and wife,” Sibal said, as he successfully thwarted the agency’s attempt to submit the envelope.
Kapil Sibal – the man who runs many businesses and is a lawyer – argued and blocked the Government counsel from tabling the envelope with the information of Karti’s dirty work
“Are these purported evidence part of any investigation conducted pursuant to any FIR? The answer is clearly ‘no’. Karti is ready to face prosecution if the CBI lodges an FIR and submits the so-called evidence purportedly put inside these sealed envelopes. Otherwise, it is just vindictiveness to harass Karti aiming indirectly to trouble his father, mother and wife,” Sibal said, as he successfully thwarted the agency’s attempt to submit the envelope.
Sibal, an ex Minister of India, calls the evidence of how Karti closed his accounts vindictiveness?!
See, it is not so easy in a democracy to simply shut someone down when he has the backing of an entire machinery! A machinery which runs deep in every department, group, University – in India and Abroad – and in think tanks and NGOs in every corner of the world.
You see, this machinery had been slighted in a big way by a small man – Modi – for 12 years when they worked hard around the world to put him out of circulation. He pulled through. But the “empire is and will strike back”!
It would have been so very easy for Modi if this was NOT a democracy and like the people suggest – he could have simply picked Karti Chidambaram and his father P. Chidambaram up and put in jail (Chidambaram, Tapuriah, Hassan Ali and Taufiq Gaffar: A Surreal Picture)!
Which Side are WE on?
When we shout out and want the PM to shut people – scoundrels and criminals – up for what everyone KNOWS were crimes but the battery of unscrupulous lawyers and a machinery of political ideologues are putting roadblocks in proving those so – then such people need to make a CHOICE! They must either be ready for dictatorship or work to nail those who thwart justice by using the very democracy that gives us all the right to question. RIght to Question cannot and SHOULD NOT be an instrument to perpetuate crime but to get justice. When we criticize the Prime Minister – who is fighting the unscrupulous machinery embedded by the past regimes – while saying nothing of the ones who are putting roadblocks, then we are FIRMLY on the side of Crime. Not Justice!
The Choice is not for PM Modi to make. But ours to reflect and make. Which side are we on? Criminals or Ours. Because We, the People, can ONLY survive and thrive when Justice prevails. Despite the machinery! Rambos exist in movies and Dictators thrive where individual rights don’t. So, dear friends, not only Modi cannot – by law – put people behind the bars, he SHOULD NOT! For, that would mean the end of democracy! The question now only is – are we ready to fight for OUR democracy or not!