Bangladesh apex court issues guidelines for arrest without warrant, grilling in custody

The Supreme Court has issued specific guidelines over two sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) dealing with the arrest of an individual without a warrant and interrogation in custody.

Section 54 of the CrPC stipulates the circumstances allowing police to make an arrest without a warrant, while Section 167 addresses the issue of securing a detention order for the arrestee through the court.

On Thursday, the Appellate Division published the full verdict of its May 24 order, when it upheld the High Court' verdict and scrapped the State's plea challenging it.

The full verdict was released after the chief justice and three other Appellate Division judges signed it, High Court Division's Additional Registrar Sabbir Foyez told bdnews24.com.

The 396-page verdict is available on the Supreme Court's website.

The High Court, in its Apr 7, 2003 verdict, ordered the government to amend the two sections within six months.

It also gave the government several instructions to be followed in the application of the sections before the amendment was made.

The verdict order came on a petition by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) which sought the implementation of the recommendations of a judicial committee that investigated the death in custody of Independent University student Shamim Reza arrested under Section 54.

The State moved the Supreme Court against the decision. The court accepted its leave-to-appeal petition but did not stay the High Court Verdict.

In May this year, the apex court scrapped the petition and upheld the High Court's order.

The court had said at that time that it will give a guideline on how to apply these two sections, which provide for arrest without warrant and interrogation in custody respectively.

The detailed guidelines were issued on Thursday, when the full verdict was published.