What is the remedy of an investigating police officer in case he wants to detain a person arrested for more than 24 hours?

Question: What is the remedy of an investigating police officer in case he wants to detain a person arrested for more than 24 hours? [UPCJ 2000, UPHJS 2000, UPAPO 2014]

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Answer

According to Section 167, if the police are unable to complete the investigation within the stipulated time of 24 hours, the Judicial Magistrate having jurisdiction of that area may extend the detention of the arrested person by 15 days and may, from time to time, increase it to effectuate effective investigation.

Section 167 of CrPC prescribes the procedure when the investigation of an offence cannot be completed in 24 hours. When any investigation cannot be completed within 24 hours and the accusation is well-founded, the police officer is required to send a copy of the entries in the diary relating to the case along with the accused to the nearest Magistrate. The object of requiring the accused to be produced before a Magistrate for purposes of remand is to enable the Magistrate to see that the remand is necessary.

When a person is arrested and produced before a Magistrate, the Magistrate can remand him to the police or judicial custody for 15 days at the first instance. Within this period of 15 days, there can be more than one order changing the nature of such custody either from police to judicial or vice-versa. After the expiry of the first period of 15 days, the further remand can only be in judicial custody. There cannot be any detention in police custody after the expiry of the first 15 days even in a case where some more offences are found to have been committed in the same transaction at a later stage.

But he can be remanded to police custody from judicial custody if the same arrested person is involved in a different case arising out of a different transaction for the first 15 days.

If the investigation is not completed within 90 or 60 days, then he has to be released on bail under the proviso of section 167(2). The period of 90 or 60 days has to be computed from the date of detention as per orders of the Magistrate and not from the date of arrest by the police. Consequently, the first period of 15 days mentioned in section 167(2) has to be computed from the date of such detention, and after the expiry of the first 15 days, it should be only judicial custody.

Section 57 says

if the investigation is not completed within 24 hours of the arrest of the accused, the Magistrate can extend the detention as provided in the provision of Section 167(2).

In simple words, it has two objects:

• To allow the accused person to have a say in front of the Magistrate.
• There are special cases in which the law allows an extension of the detention.

In Chaganti Satyanarayana v. State of Andhra Pradesh, [(1986) 3 SCC 141] it has been held by the Supreme Court that the period of 90 days under section 167(2) of the Code shall be computed from the date of remand of the accused and not from the date of his arrest under section 57 of the Code.

In the case of State of MP v. Rustam [(1995) Supp 3 SCC 221], the Supreme Court held that while computing a period of 90 days, the day on which the accused was remanded to the judicial custody should be excluded, and the day on which challan is filed in the Court, should be included.

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