Almost every family that walks into a police station after an arrest believes the same two things: that the police can keep the accused for fourteen days, and that nothing can be done about it until they let go. Both are wrong, and the second one is expensive. Physical remand is a judicial order with conditions attached, and the conditions are where a defence is either built or lost.
The first 24 hours belong to the magistrate, not the police
Section 61 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 says a person arrested without a warrant may not be detained for more than 24 hours, excluding the time needed to travel to the court. Article 10(2) of the Constitution says the same thing with constitutional force: an arrested person must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.
That deadline is the single most useful fact a family can hold on to. If the accused was picked up on Monday evening and has still not been produced by Wednesday, that is not routine delay — it is unlawful detention, and it is the basis for a habeas corpus petition under section 491 CrPC before the Sessions Court, or under Article 199 before the High Court.
Where the 14 days comes from — and what it really says
When the investigation cannot be finished in 24 hours, the police ask the magistrate for remand under section 167 CrPC. The magistrate may authorise detention — in police custody or in judicial custody — for a term not exceeding fifteen days in the whole. That is the number behind the folklore.
What people miss is everything around it:
- Fifteen days is a ceiling on the total, not an entitlement. Remand is granted in short instalments, and the police must come back and justify each one.
- The magistrate has to record reasons. A remand order that says nothing but “granted” has been set aside by the superior courts more times than can be counted.
- Physical custody is meant to be exceptional — for recovery of a weapon, the stolen goods, or an identification. “Investigation is incomplete” is not a reason; it is a description.
- Once the police purpose is exhausted, the accused goes to judicial custody, meaning jail rather than the lock-up. That is a materially safer place to be, and asking for it is a legitimate thing for defence counsel to do.
Some special statutes run on their own clock. Cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and under narcotics and certain other special laws, carry different remand periods and different procedures. Never assume the ordinary CrPC timetable applies to a case registered under a special law.
What the accused is entitled to, from the moment of arrest
- To be told the grounds of arrest — Article 10(1) of the Constitution.
- To consult and be defended by a lawyer of choice — the same Article. This is not conditional on charges being framed.
- To be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours — Article 10(2) and section 61 CrPC.
- Not to be compelled to be a witness against himself — Article 13(b). A confession to a police officer is not evidence against the accused; only a confession recorded by a magistrate under section 164 CrPC, with the safeguards that go with it, is.
- To a medical examination. If there are injuries, ask the magistrate for a medico-legal examination on the record at the first production. Marks fade, and so does the case built on them.
- To have family informed and, in practice, to be visited. A refusal to disclose where a person is being held is exactly what habeas corpus exists for.
What to do in the first 48 hours
- Establish where the accused is and under what FIR. Get the FIR number, the police station, the sections applied. A copy of the FIR is your right, and the sections decide everything that follows — bailable or not, which court, what bail looks like.
- Get counsel to the remand hearing. Remand proceedings are usually over in minutes and are usually unopposed. Someone opposing them, on the record, changes both the length granted and the tone of the investigation.
- Ask for judicial rather than physical custody where the police have no concrete recovery to make.
- Record the condition of the accused. First production is the moment to raise ill-treatment. Raised three weeks later, it is a story; raised on day one, it is a court record.
- Start the bail application immediately. For a bailable offence, bail is a right, not a favour. For a non-bailable one, section 497 CrPC governs, and the strength of the police case is assessed on the material that exists, not on the seriousness of the allegation alone.
After remand ends
The police must submit their report under section 173 CrPC — the challan — to the court. If it is not filed and the accused continues in custody, that delay is itself a bail argument, and a strong one. Statutory delay in the conclusion of a trial is also a recognised ground for bail, subject to the exceptions the law sets out.
The general pattern is simple to state and easy to forget under pressure: every day of custody must be authorised by someone in a black robe, for a reason written on paper, and every one of those reasons can be tested.
This article sets out general criminal procedure in Pakistan and is not advice on any particular arrest. Remand periods, bail prospects and available remedies differ between ordinary and special laws and turn on the sections applied in the FIR. Speak to an advocate immediately after an arrest — the first 24 hours are the ones that cannot be recovered.