police custody
An arrested person must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours. If the investigation cannot be completed, the magistrate may remand him to police custody (so the police can interrogate him, recover articles or identify accomplices) or to judicial custody (jail, under the court's control). Police custody is the exception and needs reasons.
Under the CrPC, police custody could not exceed 15 days in all and, as held in Anupam Kulkarni, only within the first 15 days after arrest. BNSS section 187 keeps the 15-day cap but allows it to be taken in whole or in parts at any time during the first 40 or 60 days of the total detention period. Confessions to the police are inadmissible, and custodial violence attracts constitutional tort liability.
Example
The magistrate granted three days' police custody so that the weapon could be recovered at the accused's instance, and then remanded him to judicial custody.
In Indian law
- s.187 BNSS (old s.167 CrPC): procedure when investigation cannot be completed in 24 hours
- CBI v. Anupam J. Kulkarni, 1992 INSC 154: police custody limited to the first 15 days under the CrPC
- D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal, 1996 INSC 1508: safeguards on arrest and custody
See also
judicial custody · remand · arrest · default bail
Read more in the study notes
- Criminal procedure: meaning, background and salient features of the BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
- Arrest: concept, procedure, safeguards, proclamation and handcuffing (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
- Bail, anticipatory bail and bonds (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
- Confessions: meaning, forms, voluntariness and confessions to the police (Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam)
- State liability in tort and contract (Constitutional Law II)
- Legal words and their usage: Kidnap to Witness (English)