(a)The powers of arrest without warrant possessed by police officers are laid down in sections 54, 55, 57(2), 128, 151 and 401(3), Code of Criminal Procedure. A telegram may be considered to furnish credible information of a person having been concerned in a cognizable offence. "Cognizable offence" is defined in section 4(f), Code of Criminal Procedure.(b)An officer-in-charge of a police-station has no legal power to summon before him any person accused of an offence. The only manner in which he can enforce the attendance of such person before him is by arrest, and without an arrest the attendance or detention of an accused person cannot, under any circumstances, be compelled. It is, therefore, to be understood that, whenever an accused person is sent for and made to attend before an investigating officer, he is to be considered as having been arrested, and to be entered in the return accordingly. The manner in which arrest is to be made is described in sections 46 to 48 and section 53, Code of Criminal Procedure. No person who has been arrested may be discharged except on bail, or on his own recognizance, of under the special orders of a Magistrate. (See section 63 of the Code.(c)"Police custody" includes custody on the authority of the police ; every person who is kept in attendance to answer a charge in such a way that he is practically deprived of his freedom shall be considered as in custody. A police officer who, without himself arresting a person, directs some of the neighbours to take charge of him, shall be responsible in the same way as if he had made the arrest himself. Requiring a person's attendance by letter and deputing a constable to accompany him with orders to prevent him from speaking to any one amounts to an arrest.(d)The attention of all officers is drawn to section 25 of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1924 (VI of 1924), which provides for the arrest without warrant of a registered member of a criminal tribe, whose movements have been restricted or who has escaped from a Settlement or School, if found in a place beyond the area prescribed for his residence, and for the removal of such member for his prosecution under section 22(11) of the said Act, to the district in which he should reside or to the Settlement or School from which he escaped.
