The arrest had been carried out in violation.
A man arrested in Delhi over morphed nude photographs of actor Sonakshi Sinha was released by a Mumbai court.
The court held his arrest illegal after finding that the police had skipped a mandatory legal procedure.
The case was registered at Mumbai’s Bandra police station following a complaint by Sonakshi Sinha.
She claimed that a Delhi-based accused had circulated morphed photographs of her on social media.
The accused has been identified as Aryan Deepak Jain, who was arrested on November 14, 2026, at around 10.11 am.
He was picked up from Jagatpuri Police Station in Delhi’s Shahdara area.
He was subsequently brought to Mumbai and produced before a magistrate at the Bandra court.
The magistrate ordered his release after observing that the police had not followed the required legal procedure.
The court noted that Jain was not produced before the nearest magistrate in Delhi before being brought to Mumbai.
It observed: “Thus, it appears that the police have directly brought the accused from Delhi before this Court without following the procedure of production before the nearest Magistrate.”
The court also pointed out that the investigating agency had failed to give a satisfactory explanation for this lapse.
The Bandra police had sought three days of custody of Jain for further investigation.
They wanted to trace the medium or electronic device used to create the morphed nude photograph of the actor.
The accused’s lawyers, Aman Shahi, Prashant Trivedi and Aditya Jain, strongly opposed the custody request.
They argued that the arrest had been carried out in violation of mandatory legal safeguards.
The defence said the police had neither served the mandatory notice nor communicated the grounds of arrest to Jain.
The lawyers also submitted that he was taken out of Delhi’s jurisdiction and brought to Mumbai by flight.
They said this was done without producing him before a local magistrate.
They further contended that the police action appeared unusually hurried because of the influential status of the complainant.
The accused maintained that he had committed no offence in the matter.
He also said that the sections invoked in the case were not prima facie applicable to the facts.
On the issue of notice and safeguards, the magistrate noted that the offences were punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years.
The court said: “Therefore, the investigating officer was required to comply with the safeguards under Section 35(1)(b) of the BNSS, including recording the reasons showing the necessity of arrest.
“The record does not disclose satisfactory compliance with the said requirement.”
The magistrate also clarified that the need for further investigation alone could not justify an arrest.
The release does not end Sonakshi Sinha’s case, which remains registered at the Bandra police station.
