Mumbai, October 29, 2026: The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench has declared the arrest of Bandra resident Arun Ferreira illegal, holding that police violated constitutional safeguards by failing to inform him of the grounds of his arrest after he was released from prison in 2011.
A bench of Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Raj Wakode, on October 27, found that the police had failed to follow mandatory procedures while taking Ferreira into custody in connection with two cases registered in Gadchiroli district.
Ferreira had been arrested in May 2007 and faced trial in eight criminal cases. He was acquitted in all eight cases. After his acquittal in the last case, he completed the formalities for release and was due to leave Nagpur Central Prison on September 27, 2011.
However, shortly after he walked out of prison, police personnel in civilian clothes took him away in an unnumbered vehicle. His mother, brother and lawyer were present at the time. His lawyer lodged a complaint at Dhantoli police station, alleging that Ferreira had been forcibly taken away.
Police Failed To Follow Arrest Procedures
Advocates Pradip Mandhyan and Aakash Sorde, representing Ferreira, submitted that the police claimed Ferreira was required for questioning in two cases registered at Purada police station and that he was taken into custody on the instructions of a superior officer. They also said he was suspected to be a senior member of a Naxalite group.
However, the court noted that the police had not produced any station diary or general diary entry to support their claim that the officer had been directed to take Ferreira into custody.
The bench also found that the arrest records did not show that the grounds of arrest had been communicated to Ferreira or his family. The station diary entry merely recorded that his lawyer had been informed about the arrest.
Court Emphasises Constitutional Safeguards
Emphasising the importance of personal liberty, the court said informing an arrested person of the grounds of arrest was not a mere formality but a mandatory constitutional safeguard.
“The cure cannot, however, be worse than the disease itself,” the bench observed, referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the D.K. Basu case, which laid down safeguards against illegal arrests and custodial abuse.
The court stressed that police must act within the limits of law, even while investigating serious offences, and that the protection of fundamental rights cannot be set aside on the ground of the nature of the allegations.
Arun Ferreira’s Legal And Activist Background
Arun Ferreira is a Mumbai-based human rights lawyer and activist who first came to prominence after his arrest in 2007 over alleged links with the Maoist movement. He spent more than four years in prison before being acquitted in the cases against him. In September 2011, he was taken into custody again shortly after his release from Nagpur Central Prison, prompting allegations of illegal detention by his family and lawyer.
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Ferreira later wrote Colours of the Cage, a memoir about his prison experience. He was arrested again in 2018 in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case and was released on bail in August 2023.
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