Action Against Police and Magistrate

How to initiate action against police or magistrate
Real life example of action against police personnel for arbitrarily arresting 498A accused

1.  The complaint against police will lie as both a departmental action started by senior police officers, and a contempt of court complaint in high court having jurisdiction over the police station.  One should start with departmental action at the least.

2.  The complaint against magistrate can be filed to the High court registrar/administrative department of high court having jurisdiction over magistrate’s court.

Lastly, the Arnesh Kumar SC judgment is applicable for all offences with punishment upto 7 years, not just IPC 498a.  So its scope is much wider and it is really against arbitrary exercise of power of arrest by police and it’s routine authorisation by judiciary rather than just misuse of 498A.

Following is a real example of a departmental action taken against police for having routinely arrested a person under 498A.  In this case, the judge while granting bail also made DCP, Panchkula responsible to start departmental action against the police persons who arrested this person without filing the checklist of requirements of CrPC 41A.  If the DCP doesn’t take any action, then they will become liable for contempt of high court as per order below.