MP High Court Orders Inquiry Into Alleged Illegal Detention Of Three Men By Police Over Vasundhara Raje 'Fake Letter' Row

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Wednesday directed a magistrate court to record statements of three men claiming illegal detention by police for nearly two days without production, who are accused of circulating a purported letter linked to ex-Rajasthan CM Vasundhra Raje criticising BJP's stance on various issues. Taking a note of conflicting versions presented by the State and the petitioners, the division bench of Chief Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Vinay Saraf directed; "We direct the Chief Judicial Magistrate to depute an officer to record the statement of the three corpus separately as to what transpired from the time they were allegedly contacted by the Madhya Pradesh police till they were produced before the Magistrate at Jaipur. Statements be recorded today, thereafter, the corpus be returned back to Jaipur so that they can comply with the bail conditions imposed by the competent court".Three men had approached the High Court in a habeas corpus petition alleging that they were picked up in the early hours of April 20 by Bhopal Police, Cyber Crime Police Station and were illegally detained for nearly two days without being produced before a magistrate. Per an NDTV report, these men are claimed to be Congress IT Cell workers who were detained by Bhopal Police for allegedly circulating a "fake letter" of the former Rajasthan Chief Minister, Vasundhra Raje which purportedly criticised the BJP's stance on issues, including the women's reservation bill. The counsel for the petitioners have contended that the men were neither formally arrested nor produced for transit remand, and were subsequently handed over to the Rajasthan Police without following due process of law. The petitioners also relied on CCTV footage of the Police Transport and Research Institute, Bhopal, to substantiate their claims. The petitioners have contended previously that corpus were never arrested, and two of them were detained from 3:00 am on April 20 and third one was kept detained from 10 am on April 20 till the officers of the Rajasthan Police illegally took them away on April 21. As noted in the court's April 22 order, the State had earlier contended that the individuals were initially called on April 20 for questioning based on oral information received by Rajasthan Police and were allowed to return home on the same day since they were cooperating.It was then contended by Deputy Advocate General for the State that at about 8:30 pm, a telephonic call was received from Rajasthan Police with regard to the registration of an FIR and keeping the corpus in custody till they (Rajasthan Police) come to take their custody. It was stated that since the corpus were cooperating no action was taken till the next morning (April 21). The corpus came at around 12:00 Noon along with their relatives to the Cyber Cell, Bhopal. Subsequently the officers of the Rajasthan Police came there and corpus were handed over to the officers of the Rajasthan Police who took them away. It was then stated by Deputy Advocate General that there is no record forwarded to him of the detention of the corpus or their arrest or any document of the custody of handing them over to the Rajasthan Police. He had stated that as per his instructions the corpus were not produced before the concerned Magistrate for police remand or transit remand of any nature by the officers of the Madhya Pradesh Police or Rajasthan Police.On April 22, the court had directed impleadment of Rajasthan Police officers and had also directed Bhopal Police Commissioner to look into the petitioners' allegations and submit a report. The court had further directed the Rajasthan Police to produce the corpus on April 27. The MP police was also directed to produce relevant CCTV footage. On April 27, the counsel for Rajasthan Police submitted that since the corpus are in judicial custody (in Rajasthan) therefore they could not be produced. The court had thus directed the State of Rajasthan to produce the corpus on April 29 and had also directed appearance of the officers. The court had further called for the relevant CCTV footage after adjusting the time difference in the clock and the real time. On Wednesday Rajasthan Police submitted that the corpus were not detained. They were only arrested on April 22, 2026 at 1:10, 1:20 and 1:30 PM and were produced before the concerned Magistrate on the same day. They were initially remanded to police custody and thereafter remanded to judicial custody. It was submitted that corpus had applied for bail before the competent court at Jaipur and bail has been granted however, since the bail bonds could not be furnished they are still in detention awaiting compliance of bail conditions prior to their release.Additional Advocate General B.D. Singh filed a letter dated 28.04.2026 along with certain CCTV footage, submitting that these are the only relevant CCTV footage. However the corpus submitted that the entire version of Rajasthan police as well as Madhya ...

MP High Court Orders Inquiry Into Alleged Illegal Detention Of Three Men By Police Over Vasundhara Raje 'Fake Letter' Row

Jayanti Pahwa

Tags