'Right To Sleep A Human Right, Cannot Be Violated': Bombay HC Pulls Up ED Over Midnight Questioning

The Bombay High Court on Monday told the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that right to sleep is a basic human requirement and cannot be violated for recording statements overnight.

The Bombay High Court on Monday told the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that right to sleep is a basic human requirement and cannot be violated for recording statements overnight. The court said that statements must be recorded during early hours and not during night when a person's cognitive skills may be impaired. The court was listening to the aggrieved senior citizen who contended that the ED violated his right to sleep after it took him for questioning throughout the night in a money laundering case.

The court was hearing a plea filed by 64-year-old Ram Issrani against his arrest by the enforcement directorate in a money laundering case, according to a PTI report. A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Manjusha Deshpande dismissed the petition to declare the arrest as illegal on these grounds but deprecated ED's way of questioning and said that the right to sleep is a basic human right that cannot be violated. 

In August 2023, the probe agency arrested Issrani after questioning him a night before till 3 AM. 

The bench said that obstructing 'right to sleep' or 'right to blink' violates a person's human right. The court noted that a lack of sleep affects a person's health and may impair his mental faculties and cognitive skills, the report said.

The court observed that when ED summoned the person it was yet to arrive at a reason to believe that the said person is guilty of an offence.

According to the report, Issrani knocked the high court claiming that his arrest was illegal and unwarranted as he had been cooperating with ED and had appeared before the agency whenever he was issued summons. The ED contended that Issrani had given consent to the midnight questioning. However, the bench said that consent was immaterial in this case and the right to sleep is a basic human requirement. The court said that the ED could have fixed it any other time, as this was not the first time it was calling Issrani for questioning.

The court also directed the ED to issue a circular/directions about the timings to record statements when summons are issued. The bench posted the matter for compliance on September 9, the report said.