The Supreme Court ruled that the 24-hour deadline to produce an arrested person before a magistrate starts from the moment of actual detention. Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar said that if police hold someone longer, they must be released. This ensures liberty is protected from the start.
Supreme Court holds that the 24-hour deadline for producing an arrested person before a magistrate begins from the moment of actual detention, when liberty is curtailed, and not from the time of formal arrest.
A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar also ruled that if a person is detained beyond 24 hours without being produced before a magistrate, the person must be released from custody.
The court held that there can be no artificial distinction between ‘arrest’ and ‘detention’ for the purpose of Article 22(2) of the Constitution, adding that any interpretation allowing the police to exclude the period of pre-arrest detention would be contrary to the constitutional mandate.