Matrimonial case of Uttarakhand, but man kept in UP jail: Court frees ‘caged’ husband

Holding that the law cannot orphan a prisoner by keeping a person in custody without an active judicial file or active remand warrant, the Allahabad High Court held that a husband’s detention in a matrimonial dispute in Rampur Jail was illegal after police found the alleged offence had occurred in Uttarakhand.

Dealing with a habeas corpus petition filed by a man, who sought his release from district jail, Rampur, alleging that he was being illegally detained after the case was found to fall outside Rampur’s territorial jurisdiction, a division bench of Justices Siddharth and Vinai Kumar Dwivedi ruled that continued custody without a valid remand order violated Article 21, ordered his release, but allowed the investigation in Uttarakhand to continue.

“It is a fundamental tenet of the BNSS, 2023, that law cannot orphan a prisoner; by returning the entire judicial record to the executive (police) while leaving the man physically caged within the district judgeship without an active judicial file or active remand warrant, the subordinate judiciary has committed gross procedural illegality,” the court said on July 8.

The bench noted that a citizen’s fundamental right to personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution cannot be negotiated through such structural contradictions; keeping a person in jail while declaring his judicial custody “non-existent” on paper transforms the detention from a judicial process into an outright administrative kidnapping and wrongful confinement.

Pointing out that the petitioner has been implicated in this case by his wife, and there is a matrimonial dispute between them, the order stated that while the judicial records in Rampur district technically show zero active custody, the physical reality remains that the man is being kept standardly incarcerated in a prison facility located directly within Rampur district.

“This glaring disconnect demonstrates that the man is trapped in an absolute ‘jurisdictional vacuum’, violating his fundamental rights under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India,” the order reads.

Case transfer, yet jail continued

The petitioner was married to a woman, and they had three children. Due to matrimonial disputes, the woman left the matrimonial home with one of their sons and started living at her parental house.

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Justices Siddharth and Vinai Kumar Dwivedi noted that judicial records in Rampur district technically show zero active custody, but the man was physically kept incarcerated in Rampur.

A FIR was registered against the husband for voluntarily causing hurt, assault, and snatching at Police Station Tanda, Rampur. However, they contended that the alleged incident had actually taken place in Village Murliwala, Police Station Jaspur, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, meaning the Rampur police had no territorial jurisdiction.

Before the FIR was lodged, the husband and wife had entered into a written compromise on March 26, resolving their matrimonial dispute. The woman stated that the matter arose from a domestic quarrel, that village elders had mediated, and that she did not wish to pursue legal action against her husband.

The husband surrendered before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rampur, on May 3, after police asked him to do so. He was sent to judicial custody on May 11, and his bail applications before the magistrate and the sessions court were rejected or later declared infructuous.

During the investigation, the investigating officer himself concluded that the entire incident had occurred in Uttarakhand, not Rampur. Consequently, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rampur, returned the case records to the investigating officer for presentation before the competent court in Uttarakhand. Despite this, the husband continued to remain lodged in district jail, Rampur, without any fresh judicial remand order.

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Claiming that his continued detention after the transfer of the case records was without legal authority, the husband filed a habeas corpus petition before the high court, alleging that he had been kept in custody despite there being no valid remand order from any competent court.

Every hour violates Article 21: Court

Keeping a citizen locked behind bars while the subordinate judiciary in Rampur holds no active legal records or files about his custody is a gross distortion of due process.

While the judicial records in Rampur technically show zero active custody, the physical reality remains that the man is being kept standardly incarcerated in a prison facility located directly within Rampur.

The factum of the continuous, unconstitutional, and forcible physical confinement of the man inside the district jail, Rampur, is conclusively established by the vakalatnama (formal legal document in India that authorises an advocate to represent you in court) executed by the man in favour of his counsel for the purposes of filing the instant petition.

The verification of the vakalatnama by the jail authority, district jail, Rampur, creates an insurmountable legal paradox for the authorities.

The said vakalatnama has been signed by the man from inside the jail premises and has been formally verified and countersigned by the competent jail authority of district jail, Rampur.

This undisputed documentary fact tears down any bureaucratic smoke screen and stands as living proof that the man is being kept behind bars by the State machinery in Rampur without a shred of legal sanction or active judicial remand.

Every single hour the man spends behind bars under these circumstances deepens a gross and incurable infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, which can neither be compensated in terms of money nor regularised by any subsequent administrative actions.

Final order

The court allowed the habeas corpus petition, declared the petitioner’s detention in District Jail, Rampur, illegal, and quashed all proceedings initiated against him in Rampur. However, it clarified that the investigation in Jaspur, Uttarakhand, would continue in accordance with the law and applicable remand procedures.