The Supreme Court has held that the 24 hours within which an arrested person must be produced before a magistrate begin when the person's liberty is actually curtailed, not when an officer later records the arrest. The only time that can be left out is the journey to the court. Because three accused in a Tripura drug case were produced after that limit, the Court set aside the refusal of bail and directed their release.

The ruling came on 5 November 2026 in Sri Sujit Das & Ors. v. Union of India (2026 INSC 1195), a reportable judgment written by Justice Ujjal Bhuyan for a Bench with Justice Atul S. Chandurkar.

Stopped at 2 pm, "arrested" the next morning

Customs' Divisional Preventive Force in Agartala intercepted a ginger truck and a man on a motorcycle at about 2 pm on 29 September 2025. It recovered 60.79 kg of Yaba (methamphetamine) tablets, partly on the spot and partly at the Customs office, and finished the search at 5 pm. The arrest memos, however, showed arrest at 11:00 and 11:15 am the next day, and the accused reached the Magistrate at 4:45 pm.

The Special Judge and the Tripura High Court refused bail under Section 37 of the NDPS Act. In the Supreme Court, the Union argued that holding suspects during an NDPS search is only a temporary restraint and that the clock starts at formal arrest. It relied on rulings of the Kerala, Madras and Orissa High Courts that had drawn that line.

No "buffer zone" before arrest

The Bench rejected the distinction. "Arrested and detained in custody" in Article 22(2) is one conjunctive expression, it said, and the Constitution recognises no detention apart from arrest. Formalities under Sections 42, 43, 50 and 67 of the NDPS Act and the 2022 Seizure Rules do not stop an agency from producing the person in time; they can continue after remand. "There is no such thing called temporary disruption of liberty," the Court said.

Section 58 of the BNSS adds a second limit: detention must be reasonable even inside the 24 hours. An unexplained 18-hour gap between the end of the seizure and the recorded arrest failed that test. The Bench also reiterated that the bail bar in Section 37 of the NDPS Act gives way when fundamental rights are breached.

The Kerala (Arun K. Thomas), Madras (Kannan) and Orissa (Aryaman Pattnayak) decisions were held not to lay down the correct law.

Outcome and directions

Counting from 2 pm on 29 September, production was due by 2 pm the next day, and it came 2 hours 45 minutes late. The arrest was held vitiated. The accused are to be produced before the Special Court within seven days and released on bail.

Magistrates must now record the actual time of detention at first production and release the person if 24 hours have passed. They may also refuse remand if the detention, though within 24 hours, was unreasonably long. The judgment is to be circulated to all DGPs, High Courts and State Judicial Academies.

Why it matters

At the first remand hearing, defence lawyers should compare the seizure memo, the FIR time and the arrest memo, because the earliest of these may now decide whether custody is lawful. For police, Customs and the NCB, the hours between "interception" and "arrest" can no longer sit outside the constitutional clock.

Citation: Criminal Appeals arising out of SLP (Crl.) Nos. 12451–12453 of 2026, decided 5 November 2026, 2026 INSC 1195.