Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The principal bench of thew Madhya Pradesh high court, Jabalpur, has dismissed a habeas corpus petition filed by a woman seeking the production and release of her husband, holding that his custody could not be termed illegal when he had failed to comply with bail conditions in an earlier case.
A division bench comprising chief justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and justice Vinay Saraf passed the order. Petitioner Aarti Sharma had alleged that her husband, Rakesh Sharma, was being kept in unlawful detention as he had not been produced before the jurisdictional magistrate within the stipulated time after his arrest in a subsequent criminal case.
The petitioner’s advocate Saket Agrawal argued that Sharma had been formally arrested on January 7, 2026, in connection with a case registered at Harpalpur police station of Chhatarpur district and ought to have been produced before the magistrate within 24 hours. It was contended that despite a production warrant being issued, he was only produced on March 6, 2026, rendering his custody between January 8 and March 6 illegal.
Sharma had first been arrested on December 4, 2025, in a criminal case registered at Rampura police station of Neemuch, for offences punishable under Section 420 of the IPC. While he remained in custody in that case, he was formally arrested in the second case on January 7, 2026.
Till the bail bonds were furnished in terms of order it could not be said that the custody of the husband of the petitioner was illegal or wrongful and as such no habeas corpus could be issued in the facts and circumstances of the case, the court said.
