Person arrested on warrant needn't be told of reason: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court has said that when a person is arrested pursuant to a warrant, obligation to separately communicate the grounds of arrest is not needed, as the warrant itself constitutes the grounds for the arrest to be supplied to the arrestee."If a person is arrested on a warrant, the grounds for reasons for the arrest is the warrant itself; if the warrant is read over to him, that is sufficient compliance with the requirement that he should be informed of the grounds for his arrest," a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said. "If he is arrested without a warrant, he must be told why he has been arrested. If he is arrested for committing an offence, he must be told that he has committed a certain offence for which he would be placed on trial. In order to inform him that he has committed a certain offence, he must be told of the acts done by him which amounts to the offence. He must be informed of the precise acts done by him for which he would be tried; informing him merely of the law applicable to such acts would not be enough," the bench said.