“Are We Living In A Police State?”: Senior Advocate P Wilson Questions Before Madras High Court Anbil Mahesh's Arrest From Lawyer's Office

Wilson made the submissions before the Madras High Court's Justice V Lakshminarayanan while the Court was hearing Mahesh's plea seeking to quash the FIR registered against him in connection with an alleged corruption case.

It may be noted that the FIR was registered based on a complaint by the former General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association, alleging that the President of the Association, BT Arasukumar, and other office bearers had collected membership and subscription fees from private schools on the promise of securing NOCs, licenses, recognition and renewals and did not fulfil the promise. The FIR was initially registered for offences under Sections 316(5) and 318(4) read with Section 3(5) of the BNS.

Later, the prosecution filed an alteration report before the Metropolitan Magistrate to include offences under Sections 7 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and to array Mahesh as an accused. Following this, the case was registered against him.

On Monday morning, the court had dismissed an anticipatory bail petition filed by Mahesh. Shortly after, Mahesh was arrested by the police from his advocate's office.

When the FIR quash plea came up for hearing on Thursday, Wilson, appearing for Mahesh, objected the police action. It was argued that Mahesh was in the office, discussing the future course of action when the police had come into the office and arrested him. Wilson argued that there was no urgency to arrest Mahesh from the office and the police was expected to maintain a decorum.

“Are we living in a police state? I was waiting since your lordship said you'll upload the order that day. Shouldn't he (Anbil Mahesh) go through the order? Is this the way they (Police) should conduct themselves? There was no rush to arrest the accused from my office. Some decorum warrants,” Wilson argued.

State Public Prosecutor John Sathyan and Assistant Public Prosecutor Arun Anbumani objected to the submission and pointed out that the police had come to the advocate's office but were waiting outside for almost 1.5 hours to arrest Mahesh when he came out of the office. It was further submitted that the police went inside the office only after being invited inside by the advocate.

Wilson pointed out that the grounds of arrest mentioned his office address as the place of arrest which would show that the arrest was made in the office. The court asked him to challenge the remand order, which had mentioned the place of arrest as the street near the office.

Wilson also sought for framing of a standard operating procedure that should be followed by the police while making similar arrests.

The prosecutors informed the court that the second accused in the case, former MLA Arasukumar, who is a close aid of Mahesh has surrendered before the Special Court today after the Supreme Court refused to grant him any relief. The court was also informed that the prosecution would be filing an application seeking his custody for interrogation.

After hearing the parties, the court adjourned the hearing to November 10, 2026.