Bihar IG arrested from Patna by Andhra police in 5-year-old case, released by court hours later

According to senior advocate Amit Srivastava, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in Patna before whom IG Sunil Kumar Nayak was produced, also ordered that no action be taken against the officer by the Andhra Pradesh police for the next 30 days.

An IG rank IPS officer in Bihar was on Monday arrested here by a police team from Andhra Pradesh in a five-year-old case, only to be set free by a local court, which declined to grant transit remand to the visiting force that had no warrant. According to senior advocate Amit Srivastava, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in Patna before whom IG Sunil Kumar Nayak was produced, ''also ordered that no action be taken against the officer by the Andhra Pradesh police for the next 30 days''. Nayak, who is the IG, Fire and Home Guards, was taken into custody from his residence early in the morning amid high drama. Several Home Guards personnel created a ruckus and relented only after being pacified by Bhanu Pratap Singh, the Patna (West) SP, who arrived with his own team. ''The Andhra Pradesh police called us at around 6.40 am, informing us about the problems they were facing upon the arrest of the IG forty minutes earlier. Although not giving prior information to the local police was a procedural lapse on their part, we chose to cooperate with them,'' said Singh. Advocate Srivastava, who received a call from the IG, claimed that the visiting police team had entered the house ''clambering across the boundary wall, clearly demonstrating their mala fide intentions''. ''The team headed by an SP rank investigating officer threw a tantrum when we told them that they could not take away my client without obtaining a transit remand from a court here,'' he said. Singh told reporters that the court refused to grant transit remand, noting that the visiting police team was neither armed with a proper arrest warrant nor did it produce the case diary. The case, in which Nayak's arrest was sought, was filed in 2024 by Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, who belongs to the YSR Congress of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy, but has been appointed Deputy Speaker of the assembly by the current TDP-led government headed by Chandrababu Naidu. Raju, who is a vehement critic of Reddy, had been arrested in 2021 by the Andhra Pradesh CID in a sedition case. Nayak was then posted in the southern state as DIG(CID) on an inter-cadre deputation. According to Srivastava, the IG was ''not named in the FIR'' lodged by Raju in 2024 after a change of government in that state, nor did the leader ''point any fingers at Nayak before the Supreme Court which had released him on bail a year earlier''. ''Last year, when Nayak was summoned by Guntur police, we filed a petition before the Patna High Court, which ordered that no coercive action be taken against Nayak who was ready to cooperate with the investigation. This apparently did not go down well with the Guntur police which went on to name him among one of the accused,'' said Srivastava. In his FIR, which has been lodged under various sections of the IPC, including 307 (attempt to murder), Raju has reportedly alleged that he was tortured by police while in custody. Srivastava said, ''We had learnt about the Guntur police having named Nayak as one of the accused. So we had moved the court concerned for anticipatory bail. But our plea was rejected last month, and we were planning to move the Andhra Pradesh High Court''. ''But the Andhra Pradesh police seemed to be in a tearing hurry. It submitted before the ACJM today that it will initiate fresh action, in accordance with the law, within 30 days. The court took the submission on record and restrained them from taking any action until the elapse of that period,'' added the advocate. Srivastava said his client will soon move the Andhra Pradesh High Court to demand quashing of the proceedings against him. ''We will also lodge a formal complaint against the high-handed manner in which the police acted against a top police officer,'' he said.

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