The Supreme Court on Wednesday, in an unprecedented move, threatened to send a judicial magistrate and an investigating officer of Surat’s Vesu police station to jail for the alleged illegal detention of a man in police custody for four days despite the apex court earlier granting him anticipatory bail.

“What has happened is the grossest contempt of the court. Let the magistrate and the IO (investigating officer) be inside (jail for four days),” a visibly annoyed Justice B.R. Gavai heading the bench told additional solicitor-general S.V. Raju appearing for Gujarat police in the matter.

“The IO and magistrate must learn some lessons from this. We will issue contempt to the magistrate also. Is this the way they decide with the Supreme Court order?” the apex court asked.

The incident is unprecedented in the known history of the Supreme Court as there was never an incident of a judicial officer being taken to task by the top court.

Although Raju tendered an apology, the bench which also comprised Justice Sandeep Mehta took strong exception to the conduct of the police and the additional chief judicial magistrate, Surat, for defying the apex court’s December 8, 2023 order by which it had granted anticipatory bail to the petitioner Tushar Bhai Rajnikantbhai Shah in a cheating case.

Senior advocate Iqbal Syed, appearing on behalf of Shah, complained to the court that despite the anticipatory bail, the Vesu police station IO had filed a remand application before the magistrate who in turn passed an order on December 13 remanding him to police custody for four days till December 16.

According to the senior counsel in the police station, Shah was beaten up by the police personnel and threatened to pay an amount of Rs 1.65 crore to the complainant in the cheating case.

“How could the petitioner be taken into custody in violation of our order? It seems Gujarat follows a different law. It is happening in the diamond capital of the world (Surat). This is nothing but deliberate and wilful violation of our order which is contemptuous,” Justice Gavai observed.

“Let the magistrate and the investigating officer come and explain how the remand order was issued. We will direct the DGP to send the contemnors to Sabaramati jail or somewhere else. Let them come on January 29 and explain to us through an affidavit,” he added.

Justice Sandeep Mehta, the other judge in the bench, also expressed his shock after Raju informed the court that the CCTV footage of the police station was not available as the cameras were not functional.

Justice Gavai pointed out that in terms of an earlier judgment of the Supreme Court, it was mandatory for all police stations to have CCTV facilities and they should also be kept functional.