New Delhi: The Supreme Court today gave a significant judgment, ruling against the artificial distinction between ‘arrest’ and ‘detention’. A bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar said that the 24-hour period within which a detained person must be produced before the magistrate will start from the period of ‘detention’ and not the time of formal arrest.“The view that 24 hours begin only from the formal arrest is contrary to the constitutional mandate of Article 22(2) and 56 of BNSS [ Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita],” the bench said, according to LiveLaw‘s report.The Supreme Court disagreed with the view that detention for a brief period is not an arrest. The report notes that the bench held that there cannot be any temporary suspension of a fundamental right.The court also said that magistrates must record the date and time of detention, and ascertain if the 24-hour period has been complied with from the time of such detention.“The dichotomy that the period of 24 hours for the purposes of clause (2) of Article 22 commences from the completion of such search and seizure and only from the time of arrest recorded by the arresting authority is not only unsustainable in law but is entirely unconstitutional,” the court also stated.Justice Bhuyan said that if such a detention continues beyond 24 hours, the person shall be released from custody.Law enforcement will not be permitted to exclude any other time period while calculating the 24-hour deadline, “except the time necessary for journey from the place of arrest to the Court of the Magistrate.”The court also asks detention authorities to ensure that detentions not extend beyond the “reasonable period within the 24-hour period.” This is particularly significant in light of the thousands of detentions in Delhi in the SIR protests.The court has also held that the decisions of the Orissa high court in Aryama Pattnaik, the Madras High Court in Kannan, and Kerala high court in Arun K Thomas, do not lay down the correct law.