But if we pass the statement handle to selectrow_arrayref it is throwing error.

Which error? Please post the code which produces the error and the exact error message.
The following code works for me:

my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:...", $user, $pass);
my $sql= "select ... from ...";
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
my $row = $dbh->selectrow_arrayref($sth);
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