Two separate rights are usually run together in this question, and separating them makes both easier to enforce. The first is the right to have someone on the outside told where you are. The second is the right to legal assistance. The Sanhita treats them differently, and the police duties attached to each are different.
The duty to inform your family is on the police, not on you
Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 every officer making an arrest shall forthwith give the information regarding the arrest, and the place where the arrested person is being held, to any of his relatives, friends or such other persons as may be disclosed or nominated by the arrested person, and also to the designated police officer in the district. The officer must inform the arrested person of that right as soon as he is brought to the police station. An entry as to who was informed has to be made in a book kept at the station. And it is the duty of the magistrate before whom the person is produced to satisfy himself that those requirements were complied with. Separately, when making the arrest, the officer has to tell the person, unless the arrest memorandum was attested by a family member, that he has a right to have a relative, friend or other named person informed.
Notice what that means in practice. This is not a favour you have to ask for and it is not conditional on your having a phone. It is a duty on the officer to make the intimation, and a duty that generates a written entry which either exists or does not.
The right to an advocate
Article 22(1) of the Constitution provides that an arrested person shall not be denied the right to consult and to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice. The Sanhita puts it in the interrogation room in terms: when any person is arrested and interrogated by the police, he shall be entitled to meet an advocate of his choice during interrogation, though not throughout interrogation. The Supreme Court's 1996 directions on arrest and custody set out the same position, and add that a person under arrest may be permitted to meet his lawyer during interrogation though not throughout the interrogation.
The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 lists the categories of persons entitled to legal services, and a person in custody is one of them. That entitlement does not depend on your income. Ask the magistrate at the first production for legal aid to be provided, and the request should be recorded. The District Legal Services Authority is the body that appoints counsel.
What to do while it is happening
- Name a person, out loud and clearly. Give a full name and a phone number, and ask that it be entered in the station register. Naming a person converts a general right into a specific duty.
- Ask for the entry to be shown to you. You may not get it, but the asking is itself a fact you can later state.
- Do not sign anything while the refusal continues. A refusal of access to a lawyer and a request for a signature are usually connected.
- Remember who else was in the room. Other detainees, the sentry, the writer at the desk. Independent presence matters later.
What to do at the first production
The magistrate is the first person with the power to record your account, and the magistrate has a specific duty to check compliance with the intimation requirements. Say plainly that you asked for your family to be informed and for a lawyer, that both were refused, and ask that this be recorded in the order. Then ask for legal aid if you have no counsel. An objection recorded in the first remand order is worth a great deal more than the same objection made later.
The remedies after the event
Once you are out, three things are worth doing. Write to the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner of Police or Superintendent of Police setting out the refusal, with dates and names, and keep proof of dispatch. Consider a complaint to the State Human Rights Commission, keeping in mind that it will not entertain a matter after a year from the alleged violation. And take advice on the criminal case itself, because a defect of this kind is most useful when it is deployed inside the case rather than alongside it. Our note on the remedies open to a person falsely accused sets out how those tracks fit together, and our guide on the types of bail available in India explains which application belongs at which stage.
Where a person is still inside and nobody has been told where he is, the position is more urgent than a complaint can address. That is the habeas corpus situation, and our guide on habeas corpus against an arrest and remand explains how the High Court is approached and what it can be asked to do.