Mumbai court frees man held over Sonakshi Sinha's morphed pics, flags illegal arrest

An accused arrested in Delhi in connection with the circulation of morphed nude photographs of actor Sonakshi Sinha was released from custody by a Mumbai court on Saturday after it held his arrest illegal.The case was registered at Mumbai's Bandra police station yesterday, following a complaint by Sonakshi Sinha claiming that a Delhi-based accused had circulated morphed photographs of her on social media.The accused, identified as Aryan Deepak Jain, was arrested today at around 10.11 am from Jagatpuri Police Station in Delhi's Shahdara area. He was subsequently brought to Mumbai and produced before a magistrate at the Bandra court.However, the magistrate ordered his release, observing that the police had failed to follow the mandatory legal procedure while bringing him from Delhi to Mumbai. COURT FLAGS FAILURE TO FOLLOW ARREST PROCEDUREDuring the hearing, the magistrate noted that Jain had not been produced before the nearest magistrate in Delhi before being brought within the jurisdiction of the Bandra court."Thus, it appears that the police have directly brought the accused from Delhi before this Court without following the procedure of production before the nearest Magistrate," the court observed. It further pointed out that the investigating agency had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for not complying with this requirement.The Bandra police had sought three days of custody of Jain, primarily to trace the medium or electronic device used to create the morphed nude photograph of the actor and to carry out further investigation.However, the accused's lawyers, Aman Shahi, Prashant Trivedi and Aditya Jain, strongly opposed the police's custody request, arguing that the arrest had been carried out in violation of mandatory legal safeguards.The defence argued that the police had neither served the mandatory notice nor communicated the grounds of arrest to Jain. The lawyers also submitted that he had been taken out of Delhi's territorial jurisdiction and brought to Mumbai by flight without being produced before a local magistrate.They further contended that the police action appeared unusually hurried because of the influential status of the complainant. The accused maintained that he had committed no offence and that the sections invoked in the case were not prima facie applicable to the facts.On the issue of the mandatory notice and safeguards governing arrests, the magistrate noted that the offences were punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years."Therefore, the investigating officer was required to comply with the safeguards under Section 35(1)(b) of the BNSS, including recording the reasons showing the necessity of arrest. The record does not disclose satisfactory compliance with the said requirement," the court said.The magistrate also clarified that the need for further investigation alone could not justify an arrest or detention without adherence to the prescribed legal safeguards."The mere requirement of further investigation cannot, by itself, justify arrest and detention without following the statutory safeguards," the court observed.- Ends