Bombay High Court holds an activist's arrest illegal and orders Maharashtra to pay him ₹2 lakh

30 October 2026

The Bombay High Court has held that the September 2011 arrest of activist Arun Ferreira outside the Nagpur jail was illegal and directed the State of Maharashtra to pay him Rs 2 lakh as compensation. Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Raj Wakode, sitting as a Division Bench at Nagpur, said that where the police themselves break the law they are meant to protect, the punishment must be proportionately stringent so that public confidence is not lost. The Bench reminded the Maharashtra Police of its own motto, Sadrakshnaya Khalanighrahanaya, which means protection of the good and punishment of the wicked. The Court faulted the police for not following the safeguards that must be observed before a person is taken into custody. Ferreira had been picked up again soon after an earlier release, and the Court found that the fresh arrest had no lawful basis. The order treats compensation as a public law remedy for breach of personal liberty rather than a private claim for damages. It places the liability on the State rather than only on the individual officers.