Police Custody Vs Judicial Custody

Table of Contents

Introduction

In the drugs case linked to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, actor Rhea Chakraborty was on Tuesday arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau, which is the apex drugs law enforcement agency in the country.
After being produced before court she was remanded to the Judicial Custody.

In India, the various procedures of the administration of the criminal law are governed by
The legislation called the Code of Criminal Procedure or Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which came into force in
Chapter 5 of the CrPC starting from section 41 lists the legal provisions about the arrest.
Arrest primarily means putting restrictions on the movement of a person.
Arrest can be done by a police officer or officer of investigating agency if the officer is satisfied that the arrest is necessary:-
To prevent the person from committing the offence further,
To prevent tampering of evidence,
For proper investigation,
To prevent the person from dissuading those acquainted with facts and more.

As per section 57 of CrPC,
The arresting authority can not detain a person in custody for more than 24 hours without producing him or her before a magistrate.
The Article 22 of the Constitution of India also has provisions for protection of a person during arrest of detention.

Police custody means that an accused stays in the lock-up of a police station or at least in the physical custody of the investigating agency probing the concerned matter.
On the other hand, judicial custody implies that the accused is lodged in jail and is under the custody of a magistrate.
Whenever a person is arrested by police or investigating agency and if the investigation can not be completed in 24 hours,
The person is mandated to be produced before a magistrate court.
The magistrate may further remand the person to custody of police for a period not more than 15 days as a whole.
After lapse of 15 days or the police custody period granted by the magistrate,
The person may be further remanded to judicial custody.
Judicial custody means that the person is detained under the purview of the judicial magistrate is lodged in central or state prison.

In police custody, the investigating authority can interrogate a person,
While in judicial custody, officials need permission of the court for questioning.
In police custody, the person has the right to legal counsel, right to be informed of the grounds
which the police have to ensure.
In the judicial custody in jails, while the person under responsibility of the magistrate, the Prison Manual comes into picture for routine conduct of the person.

Law mandates filing of chargesheet in criminal cases within 90 days.
If the chargesheet is not filed within 90 days, the court normally grants bail to the accused.
But in heinous offences like murder and rape, the accused is normally kept in judicial custody for a longer time despite filing of the chargesheet so that the process of trial is not influenced.