NEW DELHI, Nov 5 — The Supreme Court on Thursday held that the 24-hour period for producing a person before a magistrate, under Article 22(2) of the Constitution, runs from the time of detention and not from the time of formal arrest, Live Law reported. The court ruled against the artificial distinction between 'arrest' and 'detention', holding that the clock starts when a person's liberty stands curtailed.

Source: Live Law

"The view that 24 hours begin only from the formal arrest is contrary to the constitutional mandate of Article 22(2) and 56 of BNSS," the bench comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S Chandurkar ruled, according to Live Law. "Article 22(2) does not sanction exclusion of the time taken for inquiry or investigation before the arresting authority could effect arrest of the detainee. The only exception the Constitution itself provides is the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate," the court said.

Source: Live Law

No artificial distinction between detention and arrest

The court held that Article 22(2)'s expression "every person who is arrested and detained in custody" is joint and conjunctive — the two words mean one and the same thing, because the Constitution does not recognise any detention divorced from arrest, Live Law reported. It disapproved the views of the Orissa High Court in Aryama Pattnaik, the Madras High Court in Kannan and the Kerala High Court in Arun K Thomas, which had held that pre-arrest detention could be excluded from the 24-hour period, and approved the Kerala High Court's view in Biswajith Mandal that the deadline begins when liberty is effectively curtailed.

Source: Live Law

The Tripura NDPS case behind the ruling

The appeals were filed by four persons challenging a Tripura High Court judgment denying them bail in an NDPS Act case. They were detained on September 29, 2025 at 2 PM as part of a search and seizure, but were shown as formally arrested only at 11 AM on September 30, 2025. The Supreme Court ruled they ought to have been produced before the magistrate within 24 hours from September 29 at 2 PM, found a violation of Article 22(2), and ordered their immediate release, Live Law reported. The Tripura High Court had denied bail citing the stringent twin conditions under Section 37 of the NDPS Act for commercial-quantity cases.

Source: Live Law

What magistrates and police must now do

Pronouncing the judgment's conclusions, Justice Bhuyan held that if detention continues beyond 24 hours before the person is produced before a magistrate, the person shall be forthwith released from custody, and that no time period other than necessary journey time may be excluded from the 24-hour computation, Live Law reported. At the time of production, the magistrate is duty-bound to record the actual date and time of detention and examine whether the deadline was complied with; if detention within 24 hours still exceeded a reasonable period in the circumstances, the magistrate may decline remand.

Source: Live Law

Mirror Now reported that the bench also addressed how special laws interact with fundamental rights, observing that legislation such as the UAPA, the NDPS Act and the PMLA must be read and applied in accordance with constitutional principles, and that special laws cannot be used as a framework to interpret the Constitution. The ruling standardises the interpretation across jurisdictions that had earlier permitted a detention-versus-arrest distinction, Mirror Now said.

Source: Mirror Now