Bombay HC: Waiting At Police Station While IO Is Busy Does Not Amount To Arrest

Mumbai, August 27, 2026: Simply being asked to wait at a police station while the investigating officer is occupied with another case does not mean that a person has been arrested, the Bombay High Court has held.

A bench of Justices Sarang Kotwal and R.R. Bhonsale dismissed a petition filed by Manohar Pathare, who claimed that the time he spent waiting at the police station should be treated as the period of his arrest. Pathare argued that the police had control over him and had restricted his movement.

Pathare was named as an accused in an FIR registered at Dongri police station in Mumbai on June 4. The court noted that he had been called to the police station for an inquiry and that the police had neither picked him up from elsewhere nor gone to his home to arrest him.

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