'Right To Sleep Is Basic Human Requirement, Can't Violate': Bombay High Court Tells ED

‘right to sleep is basic human requirement, can’t violate’: bombay high court tells ed

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court stated on Monday that the right to sleep is a basic human need and cannot be violated, objecting to the questioning of a senior citizen by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) throughout the night in a money laundering case.

A division bench led by Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Manjusha Deshpande said that statements should be recorded during daytime hours and not at night, when cognitive abilities may be compromised.

The court issued the order after a petition was filed by 64-year-old Ram Issrani challenging his arrest by the ED in a money laundering case. Issrani was arrested by the probe agency in August 2023.

In his plea, he stated that his arrest was unjustified and unlawful and he had been cooperating with the investigation and his consistent appearance before the agency upon summons. Issrani’s plea claimed that on August 7 last year, he complied with the agency’s summons and underwent questioning throughout the night, only to be arrested the next day.

Although the bench dismissed the petition, it disapproved of the practice of questioning the petitioner throughout the night. The counsel for the probe agency, Hiten Venegaonkar, told the court that Issrani had agreed for his statement to be recorded throughout the night. According to the plea, Issrani was questioned by ED officials until 3 am.

The court said in its order, “Voluntary or otherwise, we deprecate the manner in which the petitioner’s statement was recorded so late in the night, which went on post midnight till 3.30 am.” It added, “The ‘right to sleep’ / ‘right to blink’ is a basic human requirement, inasmuch as, non-providing of the same, violates a person’s human rights,” it observed.

The high court observed that lack of sleep can impact a person’s health and impair mental faculties, including cognitive skills and other essential functions. “The said person, so summoned, cannot be deprived of his basic human right i.e. right to sleep, by the agency, beyond a reasonable time. Statements must necessarily be recorded during earthly hours and not in the night when the person’s cognitive skills may be impaired,” the bench said.

The court observed that when a person is summoned for questioning, the investigating agency has not yet established a “reason to believe” that the individual is guilty of an offence. The petitioner could have been summoned on another day or even the next day instead of being kept waiting past midnight, despite his alleged consent, the court remarked.

(With inputs from PTI)