Supreme Court ends distinction between detention and arrest, says 24-hour clock starts when liberty is curtailed

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that law enforcement agencies cannot circumvent the constitutional protection against prolonged custody by keeping a person in detention without formally showing an arrest, holding that the mandatory 24-hour period for producing an individual before a magistrate begins from the moment his liberty is curtailed, irrespective of when the arrest is officially recorded.

Rejecting attempts by some high courts to draw a distinction between detention and arrest, the court held that there could be no artificial “buffer period” during which a person’s liberty could be curtailed. (PTI/ Representative)Rejecting attempts by some high courts to draw a distinction between detention and arrest, the court held that there could be no artificial “buffer period” during which a person’s liberty could be curtailed without triggering the safeguards under Article 22(2) of the Constitution.

The apex court made clear that the 24-hour deadline is sacrosanct and that even a person detained for search and seizure must be produced before a magistrate within that period. The endeavour of several high courts, including Orissa, Kerala and Madras, to create a distinction between detention and arrest is highly problematic and wholly unwarranted, noted a bench of justices Ujjal Bhuyan and AS Chandurkar.

“There is nothing like a temporary disruption in liberty and any such interpretation is absolutely unconstitutional. There cannot be an artificial distinction between arrest and detention for creating a buffer period,” said Justice Bhuyan while reading out the operative portion of its judgment.

The judgment arose from appeals filed by four persons arrested in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, involving the seizure of 11.03 kg of yaba tablets in Tripura. The four were detained on September 29, 2025, at 2 pm during search and seizure operations but were formally shown as arrested only at 11 am the following day.

The bench held that they ought to have been produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of their detention at 2 pm on September 29. Their continued detention without judicial oversight for about 18 hours violated Article 22(2)and warrants their immediate release.

The ruling settles an important question concerning the reach of Article 22(2), which mandates that a person arrested and detained in custody must be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court.

By holding that the constitutional clock starts ticking from the moment a person’s liberty is effectively curtailed, the court has taken away the discretion of investigating agencies to decide when the period of judicial oversight should begin merely by choosing when to formally record an arrest.

“The words 'arrest' and 'detained' under Article 22(2) are conjunctive and must be read together. The period of 24 hours shall start from the very moment a person is detained, and the person must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours,” Justice Bhuyan said.

The court also rejected the proposition that a brief period of detention before formal arrest could be treated as a temporary or permissible interruption of liberty, holding that such an interpretation would dilute the fundamental protection guaranteed by the Constitution.

“A statute, special or otherwise, cannot be a guide to the Constitution. It has to be the other way round. The interpretation has to be in a manner that upholds the fundamental right,” said the bench, adding that detention of a person for search and seizure beyond 24 hours runs contrary to Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty.

The bench specifically disapproved of the judgments of the Orissa high court in Aryaman Pattanaik (2025), the Kerala high court in Arun K Thomas (2026), and the Madras high court in Kannan (2025), which had allowed the period preceding formal arrest to be excluded while computing the 24-hour deadline.

The court underscored that the constitutional safeguard was particularly important in the context of custodial violence, which often takes place when individuals are kept in police custody without being formally shown as arrested.

“The endeavour of this court is to eliminate custodial violence, which often takes place when a person is detained and not shown as formally under arrest. Custodial violence is unfortunately a recognised truth acknowledged by this court in several past judgments and incidents, including the Bhagalpur blinding case,” it said.

The bench further directed that the 24-hour period would commence from the date and time at which a person's liberty is curtailed, including when the person is intercepted by law enforcement authorities. No period spent in custody before the formal recording of arrest can be excluded, except the time genuinely necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the magistrate.

The bench also said that any detention without warrant must be for a reasonable period and that the magistrate receiving the detained person must specifically record the exact date and time from which the person’s liberty was curtailed and examine whether the 24-hour constitutional deadline had been observed.

In the event of a breach, the person would have to be released. Utkarsh Anand is the National Legal Editor at Hindustan Times, where he leads the newspaper's coverage of the Supreme Court, constitutional law, the judiciary and the Union law ministry.

He joined Hindustan Times in 2020 after stints at Press Trust of India (PTI), The Indian Express and CNN-News18, and has over two decades of experience reporting on law, governance and public policy. His work has focussed on some of India's most consequential constitutional and legal developments, including the Supreme Court's judgments on Article 370, marriage equality, decriminalisation of homosexuality, the Babri Masjid...