- What is it?:Protection Against Arrest and Detention.
- Article 22 grants protection to persons who are arrested or detained. Detention is of two types, namely, punitive and preventive.
- Types of Detention
- Punitive Detention
- What is it?: Punitive detention is to punish a person for an offence committed by him after trial and conviction in a court.
- Rights available to the person under punitive detention
- Right to be informed of the grounds of arrest.
- Right to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner.
- Right to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours including the journey time.
- Right to be released after 24 hours unless the magistrate authorises further detention.
- Rights Not Available Cases – Arrest under the orders of a court, civil arrest, arrest on failure to pay the income tax, and deportation of an alien.
- Preventive Detention
- What is it?: Preventive detention means the detention of a person without trial and conviction by a court. Its purpose is not to punish a person for a past offence but to prevent him from committing an offence shortly.
- Protection to persons who are arrested or detained under a preventive detention law. This protection is available to both citizens as well as aliens.
- The detention of a person cannot exceed three months unless the advisory board reports sufficient cause for extended detention The board is to consist of judges of a high court.
- The grounds of detention should be communicated to the detent However, the facts considered to be against the public interest need not be disclosed.
- The detenu should be allowed to make representation against the detention order.
- Punitive Detention
- Article 22 also authorises the Parliament to prescribe
- The circumstances and the classes of cases in which a person can be detained for more than three months under a preventive detention law without obtaining the opinion of an advisory board.
- The maximum period for which a person can be detained in any classes of cases under a preventive detention law.
- The procedure to be followed by an advisory board in an inquiry.
- Amendments: The 44th Amendment Act of 1978 has reduced the period of detention without obtaining the opinion of an advisory board from three to two months.