The reason this situation is urgent is structural. The safeguards in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 all assume that the arrest has been recorded. Where it has not been, none of the paperwork exists, nobody has been informed, and the twenty four hour clock is running against a starting time that only the police know. The family's task in the first day is therefore to create a record from the outside that fixes the time and the fact, and then to move a court.
What should have happened
On any arrest, the officer must forthwith give information regarding the arrest and the place where the arrested person is being held to a relative, friend or other person nominated by the arrested person, and also to the designated police officer in the district, and an entry as to who was informed must be made in a book kept at the police station. The Supreme Court's directions on arrest add that a police control room should exist at district and state headquarters where the fact of the arrest and the place of custody are communicated within twelve hours of the arrest and displayed on a notice board, and that where the next friend or relative lives outside the district the intimation is to be sent through the District Legal Aid Organisation and the local police station within eight to twelve hours. Ask for each of those by name. Their absence is itself evidence.
A phone call leaves no trace. A written complaint handed in at the station with a stamped acknowledgement, an email sent to the Deputy Commissioner of Police with a timestamp, and a registered post receipt are what a court will look at. If the station refuses to acknowledge the complaint, send the same text by registered post and by email the same hour and keep the receipts.
The first six hours, in order
- Go to the police station and ask three questions in writing. Is the person in custody at this station, under what crime number, and when will he be produced. Hand in a written complaint and ask for an acknowledgement.
- Email the same text to the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner of Police or Superintendent of Police, and to the Commissioner of Police where the pickup was in a city commissionerate. Copy yourself. The timestamp is the point.
- Call the police control room and note the time of the call and who answered.
- Check the court. Ask a local advocate to check the remand list of the jurisdictional magistrate. Many of these end here, with the person produced and remanded without the family being told.
- Collect the last known facts. Who saw the person taken, from where, in what vehicle, at what time, and whether any CCTV covers that spot. Ask the owner of any camera in writing to preserve the footage, because most systems overwrite within days.
The petition
A habeas corpus petition asks the High Court to require the person detaining another to produce him and to justify the detention. It is filed under Article 226 of the Constitution before the High Court of Karnataka, and it can be moved by a relative or by anyone acting on the detenu's behalf, which matters because the person inside cannot file it. Our guide on habeas corpus against an arrest and remand sets out what the petition should contain and how it is listed. What it needs from you is precision: the date and time of the pickup, the place, the names or descriptions of the officers, the vehicle, the witnesses, and the exact steps you took with proof of each.
Two points about scope. Habeas corpus is a remedy against unlawful custody, not a substitute for bail. Where the person has been produced and remanded by a magistrate, the custody is judicially authorised and the correct application is a bail application, not a writ; our note on habeas corpus compared with regular bail explains why the courts hold that line. And the writ is not a way of testing whether the allegation is true; it tests whether the detention is lawful.
What runs in parallel
Complaints to the State Human Rights Commission and to the senior police hierarchy can be filed at the same time and should be, because they preserve the grievance even if the person is produced the next morning. They are not fast, and no one should wait on them. Where the detention turns out to have been unlawful, compensation is claimed in the writ jurisdiction rather than by a departmental complaint, and our guide on compensation for illegal detention explains how that claim is put and what it realistically achieves.
A closing caution. Do not let the first day pass in phone calls to intermediaries. The record made in the first twenty four hours is the case. Everything after that is argument about a record that either exists or does not.