The 24-hour rule explained: why the Supreme Court says the clock starts at detention

What does the 24-hour rule say?

Anyone arrested must be taken before a magistrate within a day. Article 22(2) of the Constitution says 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”. No one can be held beyond that period without the authority of a magistrate.

The same duty appears in Section 58 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), the criminal procedure code that replaced the CrPC, where it was Section 57. The idea is simple: a judge, not the police, decides whether a person stays locked up.

Who is outside the rule?

Enemy aliens and people held under preventive detention laws. Article 22(3) excludes them from the 24-hour guarantee and from the right to be told the grounds of arrest. Everyone else held by the police, whatever the charge, is covered.

What was the question before the Supreme Court?

When the 24 hours begin. Police often hold a person during a search or for questioning and record the formal arrest later. If the clock starts only at the recorded arrest, those earlier hours fall outside the count.

That is what happened in the case decided on Thursday. Four men in Tripura were detained at 2 pm on 29 September 2025 during a search and seizure under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, but shown as arrested only at 11 am the next day, 21 hours later. The Tripura High Court refused them bail.

What did the court decide?

That detention and arrest cannot be pulled apart. A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar held that the words “arrested” and “detained” in Article 22(2) must be read together, and that “any attempt to draw an artificial distinction between detention and arrest is constitutionally unsustainable.”

Leaving out the time spent on search, seizure or inquiry before the formal arrest was, the judges said, “not only unsustainable in law but is entirely unconstitutional.” The only time that can be excluded is the journey to the magistrate. The court also rejected the idea that a short detention does not count, holding that a fundamental right cannot be suspended even briefly. Anyone held beyond 24 hours without production “must be released forthwith”.

It set aside the High Court’s order and granted the four men bail, on conditions to be set by the Special Court.

How the hours ran in the Tripura case

1. 29 Sep 2025, 2 pmFour men detained during a search and seizure
2. 30 Sep 2025, 11 amPolice record the formal arrest, 21 hours later
3. 30 Sep 2025, 2 pm24 hours from detention run out, the deadline the court applied
4. 5 Nov 2026Supreme Court sets aside the High Court order and grants bail

Had courts disagreed on this before?

High Courts had taken different lines. In April the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in an NDPS case, said the clock runs from actual restraint and that recorded arrest times are “merely declaratory”. It added that a person who is only summoned and remains free to leave is not detained. In August the Kerala High Court took a narrower view: where a law expressly allows detention before arrest, as the NDPS Act, the PMLA and the Customs Act do, the count began at formal arrest.

Thursday’s ruling, given in an NDPS case, takes the broader view that time before the formal arrest counts. As a Supreme Court decision it binds every court in the country.

What changes for police?

The time that matters is when liberty was curtailed, not when the memo was signed. Officers who hold someone through a long search or questioning before recording an arrest now risk running out the 24 hours before they reach a magistrate, and a breach can mean release.

The bench placed the check on magistrates. They are “duty-bound to record the actual date and time when the person’s liberty was curtailed” and must count from that point. Meeting the deadline is not the end of it: under Section 58, custody must also be reasonable, and a magistrate may refuse further remand if it is not.

What if police break the rule?

The arrest itself becomes unlawful. In September the same two judges held, in Jaskaran Jeet Singh Deol v State of Punjab, that an arrest made in breach of Article 22(1) or 22(2) is unconstitutional. Police cannot simply re-arrest a person released for that reason: they must apply to a magistrate, explain the earlier failure and carry a senior officer’s endorsement. For blatant violations, such as prolonged detention without production, courts may order the state to pay compensation.