📖 State of Uttar Pradesh v. Deoman Upadhyaya, AIR 1960 SC 1125

Facts: A person against whom no formal arrest had been made gave information to a police officer which led to the discovery of a weapon, and the admissibility of that information turned on whether he was, at the time, in the custody of a police officer.

Held: The Supreme Court considered the meaning of custody of a police officer for the purpose of the provisions governing the admissibility of statements made to the police. The Court held that custody does not necessarily connote formal arrest: a person may be in the custody of a police officer where his movements are under the control or surveillance of the officer, or where he has surrendered himself to the officer, even though no formal arrest has been recorded. It held that the expression is to be given a meaning consistent with the object of the provisions, which is to guard against the danger of statements being extracted by a person in a position of authority over the maker; and that the danger exists whenever that control is present, whether or not the formalities of arrest have been observed. The Court emphasised that a construction which confined custody to formal arrest would permit the safeguard to be evaded by the simple expedient of not recording an arrest.

Ratio: Custody of a police officer does not necessarily connote formal arrest. A person is in such custody where his movements are under the officer’s control or surveillance, the safeguard existing wherever that control is present.

📖 Ramamurthy v. State of Karnataka, (1997) 2 SCC 642

Facts: The Supreme Court considered the conditions prevailing in prisons across the country, including the position of the very large number of persons confined as undertrials rather than as convicts, and the extent to which the law governing prisons answered their situation.

Held: The Supreme Court held that a person in judicial custody does not cease to be a person for the purposes of the Constitution, and that the conditions of his confinement engage Article 21. The Court identified the matters requiring attention — overcrowding, delay in trial, the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, neglect of health and hygiene, insubstantial food, deficiencies in communication, the streamlining of jail visits and management of open-air prisons — and observed that the great majority of those affected were undertrials who had been convicted of nothing. It held that the law governing prisons was in need of uniformity and revision, and directed steps towards a model prison manual. The Court emphasised that the Court’s responsibility does not end with the order of remand: a person committed to judicial custody is in the custody of the Court, and the conditions in which he is held are a matter in which the Court retains an interest.

Ratio: A person in judicial custody does not cease to be a person for constitutional purposes, and the conditions of his confinement engage Article 21. The great majority of those affected are undertrials convicted of nothing, and the Court’s responsibility does not end with the order of remand.

⚠ What a Magistrate should ask before granting police custody

What is it for? Interrogation, recovery, confrontation with a co-accused — the application must state the purpose, and a purpose stated in general terms is no purpose at all.

Why can that not be achieved in judicial custody? Many things the agency wants can be done without taking the person into the lock-up, and the officer should be asked to explain why they cannot.

What was done with any period already granted? Where police custody has been granted before, the officer must account for it. An application for a further period which does not explain what the last one achieved should be looked at closely.

And the fifteen days are a ceiling, not an entitlement. A Magistrate may grant less, and should grant only what the stated purpose requires. The spreading of the window under section 187(2) permits police custody to be taken later, not in greater quantity.

The position stated shortly

1. In police custody the person is with the investigating officer; in judicial custody he is in jail, in the custody of the Court.

2. Police custody is for the needs of the investigation; judicial custody is to secure his presence.

3. The officer must state what the police custody is for, and the Magistrate should grant only what that purpose requires.

4. Police custody is capped at fifteen days in the whole, now taken in whole or in parts during the initial forty or sixty days.

5. Detention beyond fifteen days may be authorised only otherwise than in police custody — so judicial custody is the default thereafter.

6. Custody of a police officer does not necessarily connote formal arrest: it exists wherever the person’s movements are under the officer’s control or surveillance: Deoman Upadhyaya.

7. That matters because a confession while in police custody is inadmissible unless made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate, while a statement in judicial custody is not subject to that bar.

8. A person in judicial custody is in the custody of the Court, and the conditions of his confinement engage Article 21: Ramamurthy.

9. The Court’s responsibility does not end with the order of remand, and the great majority of those in custody are undertrials convicted of nothing.

10. On the expiry of sixty or ninety days without a report, the accused shall be released on bail — and no order of remand in either custody can defeat that right.