Supreme Court Rules on 24-Hour Deadline for Producing Arrested Person Before Magistrate

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the 24-hour deadline for producing an arrested person before a Magistrate begins from the time of detention, not from the formal recording of arrest. A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar held that treating detention and formal arrest as separate stages for calculating this period violates Article 22(2) of the Constitution and Section 56 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The bench clarified that time spent questioning or investigating a person before a formal arrest must be included in the constitutionally mandated 24-hour period. The only time that can be excluded is the duration required to travel from the place of arrest to the Magistrate’s court. It rejected the practice of starting the countdown only after search and seizure procedures are completed and the arrest is formally recorded. The court said fundamental rights cannot be temporarily suspended by treating detention as separate from arrest. It interpreted the words ‘arrested’ and ‘detained’ in Article 22(2) as connected expressions carrying the same meaning in this context. The bench disagreed with earlier rulings by the Orissa High Court in Aryaman Pattanaik , the Kerala High Court in Arun K Thomas and the Madras High Court in Kannan . Those judgments had allowed the period of detention before formal arrest to be excluded when calculating the 24-hour limit. The Supreme Court held that they did not correctly interpret Article 22(2). It upheld the position taken by the Kerala High Court in Biswajith Mandal , which held that the deadline begins when a person’s freedom is effectively restricted. The ruling came on appeals filed by four people challenging a Tripura High Court order denying them bail in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. They were taken into custody at 2 pm on September 29, 2025, during a search and seizure operation, but their formal arrest was recorded only at 11 am the following day. The Supreme Court found that the four had remained in custody for around 18 hours without judicial oversight, in violation of Article 22(2), and ordered their immediate release. It also said judicial supervision of detention was essential to prevent custodial violence. The court directed Magistrates to record the actual date and time when a person’s liberty was first restricted and determine whether they were produced within the prescribed 24 hours. Anyone held beyond this deadline must be released immediately. Separately, the court said detention must not continue longer than reasonably necessary, even if it remains within the constitutional 24-hour limit. Under Section 58 of the BNSS, Magistrates must assess the circumstances of each case to determine whether the duration of custody was reasonable. They may refuse remand if detention has continued beyond what was reasonably necessary.