[Answered] Given the present conditions, interstate arrests are increasing across India. Examine the rules governing interstate arrests in India.

Interstate police arrest means when the police of one state arrest the accused or culprit in some other state. The Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution puts ‘Police’ in the State list. The police comes directly under
the control of the state government and the jurisdiction
of the police is limited to the area inside its state’s boundary.
The incidents of interstate arrests are nowadays increasing across whole India. There are following rules which govern interstate arrests:

• Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC): Section 48 and 79 deals with inter-state arrests based on warrants issued by competent courts.
• Constitutional Provisions:  Article 22(2) states that every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of 24 hours of such arrest.
• Judicial stand: In 2019, inSandeep Kumar vs the State (Government of NCT of Delhi) & Ors, the Delhi High Court issued certain guidelines for inter-state arrests. E.g. before visiting the other state, the Police Officer must try to establish contact with the local Police Station. These guidelines make an exception for “urgent cases”, in which the police of a state may not inform their counterparts in the other state of an impending arrest.

Issues:

• The powers of the police to interstate arrests without a warrant have not been defined clearly.
• Despite having an established methodology, implementation of the rules has remained toothless.

Way forward:

• The inter-state arrest comes with a set of rules which must be obligated before pursuing the same.
• An absence of cooperation amongst state police makes the goal of attaining justice a far-fetched one.
• Increasing interaction can only be sought if proper legislation is devised for investigation and arrest.