Justice Ujjal Bhuyan. Photo: sci.gov.in Supreme Court judge, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, distinguished between an investigating agency’s power to arrest with the need to arrest, saying deprivation of the personal liberty of an individual by throwing him into jail “scars forever”.“Power to arrest is one thing but the need to arrest is altogether a different thing,” Justice Bhuyan referred to judicial precedents of the top court championing liberty in his separate opinion on Friday (September 13, 2024).He deprecated the attitude “to arrest first and then proceed with the rest”. Just because an investigating agency had the power to arrest, it does not necessarily mean that it must arrest a person, Justice Bhuyan observed, questioning the timing and necessity of the CBI’s arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy case 22 months after registering the FIR in August 2022.“No arrest can be made just because it is lawful for police officers to do so. The existence of the power of arrest is one thing but justification for the exercise of it is quite another,” Justice Bhuyan underscored. Probe agencies should draw a just balance between a citizen’s right under Articles 19 (freedom of speech) and 21 (right to life and due procedure of law) of the Constitution and the expansive power of the police to investigate. Published – September 13, 2024 09:32 pm IST