The power exists, but it is a narrower power than the practice suggests. Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, a police officer making an investigation may, by order in writing, require the attendance before himself of any person, within the limits of his own or an adjoining station, who from the information given or otherwise appears to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of the case, and such person shall attend as required. Four limits are built into that sentence, and each of them is worth using.
The four limits
- It must be an order in writing. A phone call from a number you cannot identify is not the exercise of the power. You are entitled to ask for the requirement in writing, with the crime number and the police station on it.
- It applies to a person acquainted with the facts. The power is a witness-summoning power in an investigation, not a general power to call people in.
- It is territorially limited. To persons within the limits of that officer's station or an adjoining station.
- There are protected categories. No male person under the age of fifteen or above the age of sixty, no woman, no mentally or physically disabled person and no person with an acute illness shall be required to attend at any place other than the place in which that person resides, although a person who is willing to attend the police station may be permitted to do so.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 provides that a public servant who knowingly disobeys any direction of the law which prohibits him from requiring the attendance at any place of any person for the purpose of investigation into an offence, or who knowingly disobeys to the prejudice of any person any other direction of the law regulating the manner in which he shall conduct such an investigation, is punishable with rigorous imprisonment of not less than six months and up to two years, and a fine. That is a serious provision and it exists precisely because the practice it describes is common.
What you have to answer when you get there
A person examined by the police is bound to answer truly all questions relating to the case put to him, other than questions the answers to which would have a tendency to expose him to a criminal charge or to a penalty or forfeiture. That exception is important and it is statutory. Separately, a statement made to a police officer in the course of an investigation, if reduced to writing, is not to be signed by the person making it. So the correct posture is neither silence nor signature: answer what relates to the case, decline what would incriminate you, and do not sign a statement.
Where a notice to appear is the correct instrument
If you are not a witness but a suspect, there is a separate and frequently ignored mechanism. For offences where the Sanhita does not require an arrest, the officer is to issue a notice directing the person to appear, and compliance with that notice is what protects against arrest. Our note on the police notice to appear and what it obliges you to do sets out that machinery, including what happens if the notice is disobeyed. Insisting on the written notice is not obstruction; it is asking the officer to use the instrument the Sanhita gives him.
What to do about repeated informal calls
- Keep a log. Date, time, the number that called, the name given, what was said, and how long you were kept. A log kept contemporaneously is worth far more than a later account.
- Ask for the notice in writing each time, politely, and note the response.
- Attend with an advocate where you can. An arrested person is entitled to meet an advocate of his choice during interrogation though not throughout it, and the presence of counsel outside changes the tenor of what happens inside.
- Write to the superior officer. A short, factual letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police or Superintendent of Police, attaching the log, sent by registered post and email. It costs little and it changes the record.
- Consider a pre-arrest application if arrest is the real fear. Our guide on anticipatory bail in India explains when that application is available and what conditions come with it.
Where this is part of a false case
Repeated summoning is often pressure applied in a dispute that has been dressed up as a crime. Treating it as an isolated grievance usually gets nowhere. The better approach is to deal with the case itself, and our note on the remedies open to a person falsely accused of a crime sets out the options in the order they are usually taken. One realistic caution: a letter to a superior officer rarely stops the calls by itself. Its value is that it fixes the record for whatever comes next.