New Delhi, Nov 5: The Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional 24-hour deadline for producing an arrested person before a magistrate must be calculated from the time the person is first detained, and not from the time the police formally records the arrest.
The Supreme Court affirmed that agencies cannot separate "detention" from "formal arrest" to bypass protections under Article 22(2) and Section 56 of the BNSS.
Only the time strictly required for the physical journey to the Magistrate's court can be excluded; time spent on prior inquiry, interrogation, or search counts toward the limit.
Custody exceeding 24 hours without judicial production requires immediate release, and Magistrates must independently record when liberty was first curtailed to verify compliance.
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