NEW DELHI, November 6 (Aalimi Nation) – The Supreme Court has ruled that the 24-hour limit for producing a person before a magistrate begins at the moment of detention, not when police record a formal arrest.
A bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar delivered the judgment on Thursday, November 5, in Sujit Das v. Union of India. The Court said the constitutional period under Article 22(2) starts "the moment a person is detained by the arresting authority."
The appeals were filed by four men who challenged a Tripura High Court order refusing them bail in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. According to the court record, they were detained at about 2 pm on September 29, 2025, during a search and seizure, but were shown as formally arrested the next morning. They were therefore held for roughly 18 hours before any judicial scrutiny.
Rejecting the argument that the words "arrested" and "detained" in Article 22(2) mean different things, the bench held that the two operate together. An artificial distinction, it said, "would dilute or negate the fundamental protection guaranteed by the Constitution." The judges also observed that creating a "buffer zone" of time for inquiry or investigation before a formal arrest is unconstitutional.
The only period that may be excluded, the Court said, is the time needed to travel from the place of arrest to the magistrate's court, because the Constitution itself provides for that exception. If a person is not produced within 24 hours, the judgment says, he or she must be released forthwith.
The bench issued a set of conclusions aimed at police and the lower judiciary:
The 24 hours run from the recorded time of detention, not from formal arrest.
No time other than journey time may be excluded.
Magistrates must record the actual date and time of detention and check compliance.
Even within 24 hours, they must examine whether detention was unreasonably long, and may decline remand if so.
The bench disapproved of earlier decisions of the Orissa, Kerala and Madras High Courts that had allowed time spent before a formal arrest to be left out of the count, saying those rulings do not state the correct law. It approved a 2025 Kerala High Court decision taking the opposite view. The Court allowed the appeals and set aside the Tripura High Court's order.
Background and what comes next
Article 22(2) is among the basic safeguards in the Constitution for people taken into custody. It requires that a detained person be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours, excluding travel time.
Reports of the judgment say copies are to be sent to the Directors General of Police of all states and Union Territories, the Registrars General of the High Courts and the heads of state judicial academies.
The decision is expected to affect how investigating agencies log the start of custody in search-and-seizure cases, including those under narcotics law. Reports differ on some case details, such as the quantity of contraband seized, and these have been left out here.
