Illegal Search Gives No Licence to Assault or Confine the Searching Officer: Supreme Court

On a lorry owner's complaint that the Barrier Inspector was demanding money, a Circle Inspector laid a trap; marked notes accepted by a co-accused were recovered from under an overcoat in the barrier office (para 2). While he prepared the seizure memo the appellants questioned his authority; after he left, promising a copy at the Dak Bungalow, he was seized on the road, carried back, thrown on a chair and confined until he gave a writing that he had searched (paras 2, 7). He had not recorded grounds of belief under Section 165 CrPC (para 3). The trial court acquitted for that reason; the High Court convicted the appellants under Sections 332, 353 and 342 IPC (paras 1, 3).

The Court found "a fallacy" in the submission that an illegal search vitiates the whole investigation and licenses obstruction (paras 4-5). Non-conformity with Section 165 "must be confined to that part of the investigation which relates to the actual search and seizure"; once the search is complete, the provision has no application to later steps (para 5). An obstruction during a non-conforming search "might be justified", but that does not permit what the appellants did (para 5). Rahman and Bai Radha had not finally decided whether such a search is illegal or merely justifies obstruction while it is being made (para 6). The doubt need not be resolved, because "even if the search is illegal, it does not justify any obstruction or other criminal acts" against the searchers (para 7). Wrongful confinement has nothing to do with the search, and treating an illegality as continuing would "encourage people to take the law into their hands" (para 8). Bringing officers back after the search is "not an obstruction to an act but a compulsion to make them act" (para 8). A copy of the seizure list may be given soon after the search, so Section 103 was not breached (para 8).