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24. One such provision of law made by the State in the interests of public order, on which respondents have relied upon, is Section 151 of the Cr P.C., which is quoted hereinbelow:

Section 151(1) : A police officer knowing of a design to commit any cognizable offence may arrest, without orders from a Magistrate and without a warrant, the person so designing, if it appears to such officer that the commission of the offence cannot be otherwise prevented.
(2) No person arrested under Sub-section (1) shall be detained in custody for a period exceeding twenty-four hours from the time of his arrest unless his further detention is required or authorized under any other provisions of this Code or of any other l aw for the time being in force.

The very language of Sub-section (1) of Section 151 Cr.P.C. quoted above makes it clear that before the Police Officer resorts to Section 151 Cr.P.C. to arrest without orders from a Magistrate and without a warrant, it must appear to him that the person, who is sought to be arrested, is designing to commit a cognizable offence and that the commission of offence cannot be prevented except by such arrest. This interpretation of Section 151 Cr.P.C. has been given by the Supreme Court in Ahmed Noormohmed Bhatti v. State of Gujarat and Ors. . Paragraph 5 (five) of the judgment in Ahmed Noormohmed Bhatti as reported in the SCC is quoted hereinbelow:

A mere perusal of Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure makes it clear that the conditions under which a police officer may arrest a person without an order from a Magistrate and without a warrant, have been laid down in Section 151. He can do so only if he has come to know of a design of the person concerned to commit any cognizable offence. A further condition for the exercise of such power, which must also be fulfilled, is that the arrest should be made only if it appears to the police officer concerned that the commission of the offence cannot be otherwise, prevented. The section, therefore, expressly lays down the requirements for the exercise of the power to arrest without an order from a Magistrate and without a warrant. If these conditions are not fulfilled and a person is arrested under Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the arresting authority may be exposed to proceedings under the law. Sub-section (2) lays down the rule that normally a person so arrested shall be detained in custody not for a period exceedings 24 hours. It, therefore, follows that in the absence of anything else, on expiry of 24 hours, he must be released. The release, however, is not instead upon only when his further detention is required or authorized under any other provision of the Code or of any other law for the time being in force. It, therefore, follows that if before the expiry of 24 hours of detention it is found that the person concerned is required to be detained under any other provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure, or of any other law for the time being in force, he may not be released and his detention may continue under such law or such provision of the Code. The detention thereafter is not under Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure but under the relevant provision of the Code or any other law for the time being in force as the case may be. Section 151, therefore, only provides for arrest of a person to prevent the commission of a cognizable offence by him. The provision by no stretch of imagination can be said to be either arbitrary or unreasonable or infringing upon the fundament rights of a citizen under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

28. Bearing in mind the aforesaid law laid down by the Supreme Court in the decisions discussed above, we find that on 25.7.2007 the petitioner and other agitators were exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression and to assemble peaceably and without arms guaranteed under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution, when they had assembled on the road and were shouting slogans demanding land for land and demanding other rehabilitation measures and there was nothing in their conduct to show that they had any design to commit a cognizable offence the commission of which had to be prevented by their arrest by the Police under Section 151 Cr.P.C. , and yet they were forcibly dragged by the Police and put in the van on the evening of 25th July 2007. We also find that although the petitioner and other agitators had done nothing to give rise to even an apprehension that they will disturb the public tranquillity, public peace or public order and yet the SDM, Badwani insisted upon the petitioner and other agitators to execute personal bonds under Section 107 Cr.P.C. and on refusal on the part of some of the male and female agitators to furnish such personal bonds under Section 107 Cr.P.C., the SDM, Badwani, sent the male agitators to the Jail at Badwani and the female agitators to the Jail at Indore. In our considered opinion, since the pre-conditions of Section 151 Cr.P.C. for arrest by the Police without an order of the Magistrate or without any warrant as provided in the section did not exist, the arrest by the police of the petitioner and other agitators from the road where the petitioner and other agitators were squatting and shouting slogans was in gross violation of their fundamental rights under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution. Similarly, since the demand by the SDM, Badwani on the petitioner and other agitators to execute bonds when they had done nothing to give rise to even an apprehension that they will disturb the public tranquillity, public peace or public order and the detention of the petitioner and other agitators in Badwani and Indore Jails on refusal on the part of the petitioner and other agitators to execute such bond during 25.7.2007 to 30.7.2007 is wholly without the authority of law and was in violation of their fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.