24-hour custody limit starts from detention, not formal arrest: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that the 24-hour limit for producing a detained person in court begins at detention, not formal arrest.

A bench comprising Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar ruled on Thursday that authorities cannot delay judicial scrutiny by treating detention and formal arrest as separate stages. The court held that the constitutional requirement under Article 22(2), read with Section 56 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), must be calculated from the moment a person is detained. The bench observed, “There cannot be any temporary suspension of a fundamental right.”

It directed magistrates to record the date and time of detention and verify whether the person was produced within the prescribed constitutional period. The ruling reinforces the requirement that individuals in custody must receive timely judicial oversight. The court rejected the argument that time spent in custody before formal arrest could be excluded from the 24-hour calculation. It held that allowing such an interpretation would undermine constitutional protections and enable authorities to delay presenting detained individuals before a magistrate. The bench explained that Article 22(2) does not permit excluding time spent on inquiry or investigation before recording an arrest.

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The Hans India