The Judgment in V. Senthil Balaji v. State — On Remands to Custody and S. 167 of the Code (Part Two)

 (This is the second in a two-part post. For the first post, click here)

The previous post in this series began a discussion of the Supreme Court's judgment in V. Senthil Balaji v. State [Crl. Appeal Nos. 2284-85 of 2023 (Decided on 07.08.2023) ("Balaji")]. It looked at the reasoning adopted by the Supreme Court while concluding that procedures governing arrests under the general law — i.e., the Criminal Procedure Code 1973 ["Cr.P.C."] — did not apply to arrests under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 ["PMLA"] because this was not ordinary police but a 'sui generis' scheme, while at the same time concluding that officers of the Enforcement Directorate arresting persons under PMLA could be granted custody of the arrested person as provided under the Cr.P.C. even though the said provisions applied to police (which the Directorate officials were not).

This post turns to the Court's findings in Balaji on how should we interpret the legal provision pertaining to extended custodial detention of arrested persons during the pendency of an investigation — Section 167 of the Cr.P.C. Before turning to the Court's findings, it will be helpful to extract the relevant portions of the provision:

167. Procedure when investigation cannot be completed in twenty-four hours.—

(1) Whenever any person is arrested and detained in custody, and it appears that the investigation cannot be completed within the period of twenty-four hours fixed by section 57, and there are grounds for believing that the accusation or information is well founded, the officer in charge of the police station or the police officer making the investigation, if he is not below the rank of sub-inspector, shall forthwith transmit to the nearest Judicial Magistrate a copy of the entries in the diary hereinafter prescribed relating to the case, and shall at the same time forward the accused to such Magistrate. 

(2) The Magistrate to whom an accused person is forwarded under this section may, whether he has or has not jurisdiction to try the case, from time to time, authorise the detention of the accused in such custody as such Magistrate thinks fit, for a term not exceeding fifteen days in the whole; and if he has no jurisdiction to try the case or commit it for trial, and considers further detention unnecessary, he may order the accused to be forwarded to a Magistrate having such jurisdiction: 

Provided that — (a) the Magistrate may authorise the detention of the accused person, otherwise than in custody of the police, beyond the period of fifteen days, if he is satisfied that adequate grounds exist for doing so, but no Magistrate shall authorise the detention of the accused person in custody under this paragraph for a total period exceeding— 

(i) ninety days, where the investigation relates to an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of not less than ten years;

(ii) sixty days, where the investigation relates to any other offence.

What Balaji says on Section 167

The discussion on Section 167 in Balaji takes place at two places — first at paras 50 to 66, and then from paras 73 to 79 of the judgment. The reason the Court wNIas called upon to interpret the provision may first be clarified. Here, the accused was arrested under PMLA, and the agency sought and obtained his custody from the concerned court, but before the agency could seek and actually take custody, the accused had been shifted to hospital for emergency procedures. The accused remained in hospital for the next two weeks. The agency renewed its request for taking custody of the accused upon his discharge. According to counsel for the accused, however, the agency was barred from taking custody now. It was argued that the 'fifteen days' referred to in Section 167(2) Cr.P.C. which spelt out the outer limit of custody possible for an investigative agency was a reference to the first fifteen days of custody, and not any point thereafter. Since the accused had already spent more than two weeks in custody, this period had lapsed, and the Directorate could not be helped. This was not a first principles pitch — it relied entirely upon a previous judgment of the Supreme Court in CBI v. Anupam J. Kulkarni [AIR 1992 SC 1768 ("Anupam Kulkarni")]. 

The Supreme Court in Anupam Kulkarni had explicitly and unequivocally held that the 'fifteen days' were the first fifteen days of custody, and did not refer to a period of fifteen days that applied across the broader time frame of 60 or 90 days. On this reading, the Court in Anupam Kulkarni dismissed applications of the CBI which sought to obtain physical custody of an accused outside of the first fifteen days, on grounds that the accused had been admitted to hospital for a few of those days and thus became unavailable to the CBI for questioning. 

There had been recent rumblings of discontent with the bright-line rule of Anupam Kulkarni emerging from the Supreme Court when in April a different bench agreed to create an exception and grant custody outside of fifteen days because it was of the view that the accused had acted in bad faith. In Balaji, not only does the Court reinforce this view that the fifteen days have to refer to a period when actual custody could be taken (para 60) but it gives the discontent with Anupam Kulkarni much firmer expression. The bench of Two Justices (same as the strength of the bench in Anupam Kulkarni) in Balaji has expressly voiced its disagreement with the view that custody with agencies must be limited to only the first fifteen days, and recommending that the matter be placed for consideration by a bench of larger strength. 

To understand why the Court in Balaji has concluded thus, we must turn to paras 50 to 66, and then paras 73 to 79. The main plank of the Court's reasoning is simple — nowhere does Section 167 itself state that police custody is limited to the first fifteen days. It says that the magistrate may authorise detention in custody from 'time to time', for a term not exceeding fifteen days 'in the whole'. This 'in the whole' cannot be read as the first fifteen days, but must refer to the outer limit of permissible detention in custody during an investigation which is either 90 days or 60 days (depending upon the offence). It acknowledges that the time limits have an Article 21 element and are a means to ensure speedy investigations, but it firmly holds that the Anupam Kulkarni view is principally wrong and this textual / plain / literal reading of Balaji ought to be favoured — "any other interpretation would seriously impair the power of investigation" (para 63). [Coincidentally, the Court was also not keen to provide any notice to prior to arrest on similar grounds of it seriously impairing investigations (para 33).]

Why Balaji is wrong in its reading of Section 167

There may or may not be a hearing on this issue of how to read Section 167 by a bench of larger strength — the Chief Justice may conclude that it is unnecessary, or perhaps the provision itself will be rendered a relic of the past with the new Sanhitas come into force. Nevertheless, it is important to understand why the view taken in Balaji is incorrect.

Let us take the statutory interpretation facets first. Balaji pens an ode to plain / literal / textual reading of a statute to convince us that such a reading ought to be followed in this case. But in tune with the double-speak found elsewhere in the judgment, we find that the Court abandons the statutory text when it suits the conclusions the Court wants to arrive it. In telling us that the limit of fifteen days can span across the overall period of 90 / 60 days, Balaji fails to pay heed to the phrase "the period of fifteen days" which the proviso refers to. This is not "a period" of fifteen days over which detention in custody of an agency can take place, but a definite, "the period" of fifteen days during which the detention can take place. It has to, therefore, be a continuous period, and not one that can be shaved off and broken up across a 90 / 60 day period. 

If the Court in Balaji had engaged more closely with the decision in Anupam Kulkarni, it would have realised that Anupam Kulkarni was not seemingly operating with the old Cr.P.C. in mind, but it was very much aware of the new law. This is where the history behind the provision becomes critical to understand, something which Balaji does a great disservice to, more so because what it offers to us is a half-baked historical approach with the comparison table (para 50) which merely presents the 1898 Code along side with the 1973 Code and plays spot the differences. 

A Short History of Section 167(2)

There is a journey from the old Code to the 1973 Code, a reason behind the choices made by Parliament when it enacted Section 167 and the other provisions of the 1973 Code. Without even attempting to delve into this history, the Court in Balaji could not have made assumptions about what might have been the legislative intent behind the phrasing of Section 167 as it was brought in the 1973 Code.

What is this history? Section 167 of the old 1898 Code permitted only fifteen days of custody during an investigation. This prompted a practice where police filed incomplete chargesheets only to make sure that the accused remained in custody while the investigation could continue, resulting in lengthy detentions at a stage even before the court was anywhere near starting proceedings. Parliament wanted to fix this aspect of the existing setup and speed up the process. 

This is the story that we find in different Law Commission Reports (repeated in judgments later), but none of these detail the drafting process of the new provisions, which is what we now turn to. The result of the initial discussions around a new Code was draft Section 170 in the Criminal Procedure Code Bill of 1970, the relevant portion of which read as follows:

(2) The magistrate to whom an accused person is forwarded under this section may, whether he has or has not jurisdiction to try the case, from time to time, authorise the detention of the accused in such custody as such magistrate thinks fit, for a term not exceeding fifteen days in the whole ... 

Provided that — 

(a) the magistrate may extend the term beyond the period of fifteen days if he is satisfied that adequate grounds exist for doing so; 

 ...  

As can be seen, the idea of 60 / 90 day limits was absent in this first iteration of the new Code. As was the idea of default bail. Instead the idea was to stick to fifteen day periods, requiring constant monitoring by court. The time limits, and default bail, both came into the draft after the Joint Committee of Parliament considered the draft, which also recommended reworking the clauses to retain the old statutory scheme for ease of convenience (something the Sanhitas' drafters may have done well to remember). When the Bill was introduced in Parliament, it contained the time limit scheme and the relevant part read as follows:

(2) The Magistrate to whom an accused person is forwarded under this section may, whether he has or has not jurisdiction to try the case, from time to time, authorise the detention of the accused in such custody as such Magistrate thinks fit, for a term not exceeding fifteen days in the whole ... 

Provided that — 

(a) the Magistrate may extend the term beyond the period of fifteen days if he is satisfied that adequate grounds exist for doing so; but no magistrate shall authorise the detention of the accused in custody for a total period exceeding ninety days ... 

... 

Again, there is another critical difference in how Section 167(2) was in the draft legislation as compared to what was finally enacted. There is no fifteen day limit on police custody in this draft whatsoever. There is a fifteen day period in which custody can be granted, following which there is the possibility of extension, up to ninety days, if deemed necessary by the court. 

In effect, then, the draft of the new law permitted much longer police custody than even the old Code. This problem was not lost on Parliament. When the clause was taken up for discussion on 09.05.1973, the issue was flagged by Dinesh Joarder and was reiterated by other members in their initial speeches. During the clause-by-clause discussions on 01.09.1973, the Government accepted the suggested amendments by B.R. Shukla to draft Section 167, which sought to make it clear that any extension of custody beyond the fifteen day period would be "otherwise than in the custody of the police". (Far more debate took place, and even led Section 167 to be reconsidered later, on account of the introduction of default bail).

Thus, what is clear is this. Parliament knew how the Old Code worked and saw the first fifteen days after an arrest as a period where detention in custody was somewhat permissible. It did not restrict these powers further. However, it sought to put an end to filing of incomplete chargesheets by police through explicitly permitting detention in custody during investigations up to a certain period. While doing so, it created a draft which made it ambiguous as to whether the extension outside the first fifteen days could contemplate detention in police custody. Members of Parliament flagged this ambiguity during debates, and the draft law was suitably amended to make it clear that extension of custody outside of that first fifteen day period could never contemplate detention in police custody.

This was the understanding followed by courts in the aftermath of the new code being brought into force. The Delhi High Court in Dharam Pal [1980 CriLJ 1394] dealt with a challenge by the state to orders of a magistrate refusing to grant police custody within the first fifteen days of arrest as judicial custody had been granted. The High Court held that altering the nature of custody was possible and arguably necessary, but was only possible within the first fifteen days from a plain reading of the law. In setting aside the order, even though the first fifteen days of custody had lapsed, the High Court directed the magistrate to consider the matter as on the date when police sought the remand. 

An even clearer exposition of how Section 167 was understood and applied was seen in the Kerala High Court's judgment of K.V. Sadanandan [1984 CriLJ 1823]. Applying Section 167 was a two-step exercise, as the Court explained. Section 167(2) explained that the first step was first deciding to decide the nature of detention in custody for fifteen days in the whole. Only if at the end of this period the Court remained of a view that further detention was necessary, it could resort to the proviso, and extend detention up to the 60 / 90 days, but the nature of such detention could only be "otherwise than in the custody of the police". 

Therefore, Anupam Kulkarni did not mistakenly apply the law thinking it was dealing with the 1898 Code as Balaji suggests, but it was following what had emerged as an established view across courts, and was also the correct view deciphered from a textual reading of Section 167 itself. 

The Promise of Liberty

In failing to consult the history behind Section 167, it is no wonder that the Court in Balaji commits such serious errors as to assuming the correct legislative intent behind the provision. At no point was it in the mind of Parliament to grant police the custody of persons in a manner even broader than the colonial 1898 Code. The very purpose behind the comprehensive restructuring of Section 167 by Parliament in 1973 was to send a clear signal to police that their languorous investigations spread over months if not years were antithetical to personal liberty that the Constitution respected and guaranteed through Article 21. If such kinds of investigations were in the minds of agencies, then it was precisely Parliament's intent to impair the power of police to continue with such practices. 

That Balaji found it difficult to accept this clear intention is not a unique feat. Similar difficulties were, in fact, experienced in the context of the other part of Section 167 i.e. the insertion of default bail provisions, when they came, which the Supreme Court had gone so far as to comment was Parliament's creation of a "paradise for criminals". Yet, no matter how unpalatable to its sensibilities Court must honour legislative intent, and not find ways to skirt around it as long as it remains palpable to the Constitution itself. And, by all accounts, Section 167 in prescribing a limit on police custody as being permissible only during the first fifteen days of arrest is certainly not contrary to the Constitution. 

The conclusions in Balaji on this aspect of reading Section 167(2) of the Cr.P.C. are, therefore, incorrect.