Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
The question asks for the maximum period a person can be detained in police custody after arrest before being produced before a Magistrate. This is a fundamental constitutional and procedural safeguard against illegal detention.
Step 2: Key Legal Provision:
This right is guaranteed under Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India and is also provided for in Section 57 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
- Article 22(2): "Every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court of the magistrate and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a magistrate."
- Section 57, CrPC: "No police officer shall detain in custody a person arrested without warrant for a longer period than under all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, and such period shall not, in the absence of a special order of a Magistrate under section 167, exceed twenty-four hours exclusive of the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Magistrate's Court."
Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Both the Constitution and the CrPC mandate that an arrested person must be produced before a Magistrate within 24 hours of arrest. This period excludes the time taken for travel. Any detention beyond 24 hours is illegal unless authorized by a Magistrate's order (remand).
- Options (C) 14 days and (D) 90 days are related to the maximum periods of judicial remand that a Magistrate can grant during the investigation phase, not the initial period of detention after arrest.
Step 4: Final Answer:
A person arrested should not be detained in police custody for more than 24 hours without being produced before a Magistrate.
Having heard the learned Counsels for the parties, and on perusal of the ma terial on record, the primary issue which arises for consideration of this Court is ”whether a review or recall of an order passed in a criminal proceeding initiated under section 340 of CrPC is permissible or not?” [...] A careful consideration of the statutory provisions and the aforesaid decisions of this Court clarify the now-well settled position of jurisprudence of Section 362 of CrPC which when summarized would be that the criminal courts, as envisaged under the CrPC, are barred from altering or reviewing in their own judgments except for the exceptions which are explicitly provided by the statute, namely, correction of a clerical or an arithmetical error that might have been committed or the said power is provided under any other law for the time being in force. As the courts become functus officio the very moment a judgment or an order is signed, the bar of Section 362 CrPC becomes applicable. Despite the powers provided under Section 482 CrPC which, this veil cannot allow the courts to step beyond or circumvent an explicit bar. It also stands clarified that it is only in situations wherein an application for recall of an order or judgment seeking a procedural review that the bar would not apply and not a substantive review where the bar as contained in Section 362 CrPC is attracted. Numerous decisions of this Court have also elaborated that the bar under said provision is to be applied stricto sensu.
(Extracted with edits and revisions from Vikram Bakshi v. RP Khosla 2025 INSC 1020)