1. The Criminal Petition has been filed under Sections 480 and 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for brevity ‘the BNSS’), seeking to enlarge the Petitioner/Accused No.7 on bail in Crime No.322 of 2025 of Proddatur III Town Police Station, YSR Kadapa District, registered for the alleged offences punishable under Sections 319(2) read with 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (for brevity ‘the BNS.,’) and Section 66-D of The Information Technology Act, 2000 (for brevity ‘the IT Act.,’).

2. Sri Karthik Shah, learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that Petitioner’s continued incarceration is wholly unsustainable in law and equity. The record unmistakably reveals that Petitioner was subjected to illegal detention for thirty-five days prior to his formal arrest, in flagrant violation of Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India and Section 57 read with Section 167 of ‘the Cr.P.C.’ Such unlawful custody vitiates the subsequent arrest and renders the prosecution’s case infirm at its very foundation. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Enforcement Directorate v. Subhash Sharma (2025 SCC OnLine SC 240) has categorically held that liberty cannot be sacrificed at the altar of investigative excesses, and this Court is bound to enforce that constitutional mandate.

3. It is further urged that the Petitioner has been falsely implicated without any direct allegation from the complainant. The entire edifice of accusation rests upon the statements of L.Ws.3 and 4, who themselves are the actual beneficiaries of the illicit transfer of Rs.44,00,000/-. The Petitioner’s only association with them was a casual acquaintance during a brief trip, and no overt act has been attributed to him either in the FIR or in the complainant’s narration. In such circumstances, fastening criminal liability upon him is nothing but a travesty of justice, and this Court ought to intervene to prevent further miscarriage.

4. The Petitioner is a young B.Tech student of 24 years, with no criminal antecedents and a permanent abode in Rajasthan. His prolonged incarceration gravely jeopardizes his academic career and future prospects. The offences alleged are punishable with imprisonment of less than seven years, and he has already undergone forty days of lawful custody apart from the illegal detention. The jurisprudential principle that “bail is the rule and jail is the exception” has been consistently reiterated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, and the present case squarely falls within that protective ambit.

5. Further, it is submitted that the so-called confession extracted under coercion and blank signatures is inadmissible being hit by Section 23 of ‘the BNS.’ The Petitioner solemnly undertakes to abide by any conditions imposed, to cooperate fully with the investigation, and not to tamper with evidence or influence witnesses. In light of these compelling circumstances, it is urged that this Court may graciously enlarge the Petitioner on bail and allow the Criminal Petition.

6. Sri A.Sai Rohith, learned Assistant Public Prosecutor submits that the allegations of coercion and illegal detention now sought to be projected by the Petitioner are nothing but an afterthought, devised to create sympathy and secure bail. The record demonstrates that the statement of the accused was recorded in the presence of independent mediators, after duly apprising him of his legal rights. The statement was voluntarily made, translated into Hindi, read over, and acknowledged by him. Hence, the belated plea of duress is devoid of merit and deserves to be rejected in limine, as it is calculated to mislead this Court and obstruct the course of justice.

7. It is further urged that the offences alleged are of a serious economic nature, involving fraudulent impersonation of public officials and siphoning of colossal sums exceeding Rs.3.25 crores from a vulnerable citizen. The gravity of the offence, the magnitude of the cheating, and the organized modus operandi employed by the accused demand that the investigation be allowed to proceed unhindered. Enlarging the Petitioner on bail at this stage would imperil the integrity of the investigation, embolden similar rackets, and erode public confidence in the criminal justice system. In view of these compelling circumstances, it is urged that the present Criminal petition be dismissed in the paramount interest of justice, fair investigation, and public interest.

8. The Court has considered the submissions of learned Counsel for the Petitioner and learned Assistant Public Prosecutor, perused the record, and examined the jurisprudence invoked.

9. The Hon’ble Apex Court in Subhash Sharma supra at paragraph No.6 held as under:

                  “6. This argument cannot be accepted. Admittedly, the LOC was issued at the instance of the appellant-Directorate of Enforcement. By executing the LOC, the Bureau of Immigration detained the respondent at IGI Airport from 4th March 2022 on behalf of the Appellant. The finding of fact recorded in paragraph 10 is that undisputedly, the physical custody of the respondent was taken over by the appellant from the Bureau of Immigration at 11.00 hours on 5th March, 2022. Thereafter, at 1.15 hours on 6th March 2022, an arrest memo was prepared by ED at Raipur. He was produced before the Court at 3 p.m. on 6th March, 2024. The perusal of the arrest order(Annexure p-1) shows that the typed order was kept ready. The date and time of arrest were kept blank which appear to have been filled in by hand. Admittedly, the respondent was not produced before the nearest learned Magistrate within 24 hours from 11.00 a.m. on 5th March, 2022. Therefore, the arrest of the respondent is rendered completely illegal as a result of the violation of clause 2 of Article 22 of the Constitution of India. Thus, the continuation of the respondent in custody without producing him before the nearest Magistrate within the stipulated time of 24 hours is completely illegal and it infringes fundamental rights under clause 2 of Article 22 of the Constitution of India. Therefore, his arrest gets vitiated on completion of 24 hours in custody. Since there is a violation of Article 22(2) of the Constitution, even his fundamental right to liberty guaranteed under Article 21 has been violated.”

10. The Punjab and Haryana High Court in Anuj Kumar Singh v. Union of India (2026 SCC OnLine PCH 5458), at paragraph No.12 held as under:

                  “12. As a sequitur to the above rumination, the following postulates emerge:

                  (i) The twenty-four-hour period under Section 57 CrPC/Section 58 BNSS begins from exact moment of physical arrest. The clock of liberty begins the moment an individual's volition is subsumed by the arresting authority's coercive power and he/she is no longer free to depart, regardless of when a formal declaration is made.

                  (ii) There is no straight-jacket formula for determining the moment of arrest as it is a question of fact that depends upon the facts/circumstances of a particular case, including but not limited to, whether the individual concerned was kept in the police station/office of the investigating agency overnight, whether such individual had freedom to get his own food, etc. whether the individual was freely permitted to meet his friend(s)/relative(s), whether the petitioner could leave the police station/office of the investigating agency on his own discretion, etc. No universal guidelines or parameters can possibly be enumerated for this exercise of power by the Magistrate/concerned Court as every case has its own unique factual conspectus.

                  (iii) Entry(s) contained in police records or arrest memos are merely declaratory and do not constitute infallible or conclusive proof of the time of arrest.

                  (iv) The Magistrate/Court before which the arrestee/detained person is produced bears a non-delegable solemn duty to act proactively piercing the documentary veil of the timeline provided by the arresting authority.”

11. The Telangana High Court in T. Ramadevi v. State of Telangana (2024 SCC OnLine TS 4288), at paragraph Nos.22 & 25 held as under:

                  “22. What is also required to be noted, at this juncture, is that even Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India envisages that every person who is arrested and detained in custody “shall be produced before the nearest Judicial Magistrate” within 24 hours of such arrest and detention with exceptions carved out, those which are not applicable in the present case. Same is the provision that is reflected in Section 167 of Cr. P.C. as well and if we further read the provisions of Sub-Section (2) of Section 167, it also provides for the power upon the Judicial Magistrate to even entertain those applications/cases of accused persons produced before him irrespective of whether he has or does not have jurisdiction to try the case. In cases where the Judicial Magistrate does not have jurisdiction, under the said circumstances also Sub-Section (2) empowers the nearest Judicial Magistrate to consider granting of judicial custody and order the accused to be forwarded before such Court which otherwise has the jurisdiction.

                  25. In the light of the aforesaid judicial precedents and upon reading of the two provisions of law, we have no hesitation in reaching to the conclusion that TSPDFE Act has not in any manner ousted the applicability of the provisions of Cr. P.C. so far as the mandatory requirement which includes the fundamental right of any person who stands apprehended or arrested to be produced before the nearest Judicial Magistrate. If the said interpretation is not accepted or followed; the very purpose, object and intention of the law makers at the first instance so far as the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India and secondly under the statute i.e. Section 167(1) and (2) of Cr. P.C. would render the two provisions redundant, which in the opinion of this Court would give rise to far more complications and repercussions and which perhaps is also not the intention of the law makers in the course of enacting the TSPDFE Act.”

12. The Telangana High Court in Shatabdi Manna v. State of Telangana (Crl.P.No.3938 of 2026) at paragraph No.6 held as under:

                  “6. In the light of the submissions made by both the learned counsel and upon perusal of the material available on record, it appears that the petitioner is arrayed as accused No.2 in a case registered for alleged possession of contraband substance and the matter is now pending trial after filing of the charge sheet. The main allegation against the petitioner is that she was found in possession of about 63 grams of contraband substance at Miyapur Bus Stop. Further, as seen from the record, there is a delay of more than 5 hours in producing the petitioner before the nearest Magistrate after arrest. As held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi) ((2024) 8 Supreme Court Cases 254), that when the time of arrest and production of the accused before the Magistrate is considered and the production is beyond 24 hours, such detention would be violative of Article 22(2) of the Constitution, and the subsequent remand would not cure the illegality, and the accused would be entitled to be released on that ground. In view of the above settled legal position and considering the facts and circumstances of the case, this Court deems it fit to grant bail to the petitioner, subject to the following conditions…”

13. The High Court of Orissa at Cuttack in Jati vs. State of Odisha (MANU/OR/0874/2025) at paragraph Nos.4, 6 & 8 held as under:

                  “4. On a careful consideration of the rival submissions makes it apparently clear that the plea of illegal detention of the Petitioners as advanced stems from the provisions of Sec. 58 of BNSS(Sec. 57 of CrPC) which is titled as "person arrested not to be detained more than 24 hours" and it is accordingly, laid down in Sec. 58 of BNSS that no Police Official shall detain in custody a person arrested without warrant for a longer period than under all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, and such period shall not, in the absence of a special order of a Magistrate under section 187 of BNSS (U/S. 167 CrPC), exceed twenty-four hours exclusive of the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Magistrate's Court, whether having jurisdiction or not. What is significant is that arrest has not been defined either in BNSS or in any statute, but how arrest is made has been provided in Sec. 43(1) of BNSS (Sec. 46 of CrPC) and it is stated therein that in making an arrest, the police officer or other person making the same shall actually touch or confine the body of the person to be arrested, unless there be a submission to the custody by word or action. It is, therefore, plain and simple that if the Officer arresting the person touches or confine the later, it can be said that the said person (the later) is arrested and such person can also be said to have been arrested, if he submits to the custody by word or action. However, "custody" and "arrest" are not synonymous and in every arrest, there must be custody, but not vice versa, since a person in custody may not be under arrest. Further, the custody means physical surrender of the person and even if a person is not arrested, he can surrender in the Court, but one thing is very clear that during custody in a criminal matter, the person is considered to be in duress. It is, however, very clear that if a person is either arrested or confined in custody of a law enforcing agency, he is under duress. Protection of life and personal liberty of a person is the fundamental right of such person and Article 22 of the Constitution of India provides protection against arrest and detention in certain cases and, therefore, the provision of Sec. 58 of BNSS(Sec. 57 of CrPC) flows from Article 22(2) which makes it mandatory that every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before the nearest Magistrate within a period of twenty-four hours of such arrest excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the Court of the Magistrate and no such person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period without the authority of a Magistrate. In addition, Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India provides that no person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for such arrest nor shall he be denied the right to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice. It is, therefore, very clear that if a person is detained in custody of Police on the charge of committing any offence is automatically can be presumed of his arrest, unless he is set free and if such custody of said person by the Police Official continues, the Police Official keeping such person in custody shall be required to produce him before nearest Magistrate within a period of 24 hours excluding the time necessary for the journey.

                  6. Assuming the plea of the police about arresting the petitioners by Purusottampur Police at 00.20am to be a fact, but the petitioners being detained by Buguda police since 5 AM of the previous day i.e. 16.01.2025 without any authorization by Judicial Magistrate is violative of the Constitutional provision of arrest and detention inasmuch as, law prescribes that no person can be detained in custody beyond 24 hours without the authorization of the Judicial Magistrate which is the mandate of 187 of BNSS (U/S. 167 CrPC) and, therefore, the police in this case could have taken permission of the concerned Magistrate to take the petitioners in remand beyond 24 hours. When a particular thing in law is to be done in a particular way, it is to be done in that way or not at all. In this case, what prevented the police not to take any authorization from the concerned Magistrate to take the petitioners in remand, if they are found allegedly involved in a criminal case. Personal liberty of a person is not only sacrosanct, but also his fundamental right and such personal liberty of a person cannot be curtailed except according to the procedure established by law. This Court is unable to accept the plea of the Police for keeping the petitioners detained in custody beyond 24 hours without any authorization of the Magistrate, even the petitioners were received in custody from Buguda police at 00.20am by the Purusottampur Police since the petitioners were detained continuously w.e.f. 5am on 16.01.2025.

                  8. On a careful conspectus of admitted facts of the time of detention and arrest of the petitioners in this case, which found to be violative of Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India and applying the law laid down by Apex Court in Subash Sharma(supra), this Court considers that since the arrest and detention of the petitioners being infringement of their fundamental right, their further detention in custody should not be enlarged and they be released on bail forthwith.”

14. The writ of personal liberty is the fulcrum upon which our criminal jurisprudence pivots, it cannot be allowed to be eroded by procedural expedients or investigative overreach. The material on record discloses a palpable and inexcusable hiatus between the inception of custodial restraint and the formal imprimatur of arrest and production before a judicial forum. Such detention, whether characterised as “custody” or clothed with the semblance of administrative detention, effectively subsumed the Petitioner’s volition and set the liberty-clock in motion. In consonance with the binding dicta of the Hon’ble Apex Court in Subhash Sharma supra and the subsequent expositions of High Courts, the failure to produce a detained person before the nearest Magistrate within the statutory twenty-four hour compass, exclusive of lawful transit time, is not a mere irregularity but a constitutional infirmity, it vitiates the subsequent arrest and casts an indelible shadow over every derivative act of the prosecution. Where the State, by its acts or omissions, curtails the elementary safeguards enshrined in Article 22(2) of the Constitution of India and corresponding provisions of ‘the BNSS.,’/’the Cr.P.C.,’ the remedy is not a technical nicety but restoration of the aggrieved person’s liberty.

15. The evidentiary edifice marshalled against the Petitioner is tenuous and predominantly derivative. There is no direct allegation from the complainant implicating the Petitioner in any overt act constitutive of the charged offences, rather, the prosecution’s case rests upon the testimonies of interested witnesses who stand to gain from the impugned transactions. The law is well settled that mere proximity, acquaintance or unexplained presence, without cogent incriminating material, cannot be transmuted into criminal culpability. In the absence of contemporaneous, admissible, and reliable evidence linking the Petitioner to the core acts of fraudulent impersonation or the alleged misappropriation, the balance of convenience and the interests of justice weigh heavily in favour of bail. The Court must be vigilant to prevent process from being weaponised to effect preventive detention under the guise of investigation.

16. The confession and associated statements relied upon by the prosecution are assailed as tainted by coercion and procedural infirmity and, in any event, fall within the ambit of exclusion under the statutory scheme. Where there are plausible indicia of involuntariness, blank signatures and contested circumstances surrounding recording and translation, such statements cannot be afforded determinative weight at the interlocutory bail stage. Section 23 of ‘the BNS.,’ and the analogous safeguards under criminal law underscore the imperative that confessions and statements must be the product of free will and procedural regularity. Given the contentious provenance of those statements and the Petitioner’s unblemished antecedents, the Court is persuaded that the risk of tampering with prosecution material or influencing witnesses can be effectively mitigated by stringent but conventional bail conditions.

17. Weighing the totality of factors, the constitutional breach occasioned by protracted pre-arrest custody, the frailty of the incriminating material, the Petitioner’s youth, academic pursuits and settled address, the punishability spectrum of the alleged offences and the overarching presumption that bail is the norm and incarceration the exception, the scales tip decisively in favour of liberty. In the exercise of judicial discretion, and without expressing any opinion on the ultimate merits, the Petitioner is therefore admitted to bail on his furnishing a bond and surety, and on such conditions as the learned Trial Court may deem fit to impose to secure attendance and ensure the unimpaired progress of investigation and trial. Liberty, though not absolute, is sacrosanct, where its curtailment proceeds from procedural illegality and the predicate evidence is infirm, the salutary course is to restore the accused to the protection of judicially supervised liberty. The Petitioner was arrested on 16.05.2026 and has remained in judicial custody for the last 93 days. Significantly, the Petitioner’s name was not mentioned in the FIR. It is only in the statement of L.W.3 that the Petitioner has been referred to as Accused No.7, indicating that he was not originally named as an accused in the case.

18. Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the nature and gravity of allegations levelled against the Petitioner/Accused No.7, this Court is inclined to enlarge the Petitioner/Accused No.7 on bail with some stringent conditions.

19. In the result, the Criminal Petition is allowed with the following stringent conditions:

                  i. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall be enlarged on bail subject to him executing a bond for a sum of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand only) with two sureties for the like sum each to the satisfaction of the learned I Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Proddatur.

                  ii. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall appear before the Station House Officer concerned, on every Saturday in between 10:00 am and 05:00 pm, till filing of the charge sheet.

                  iii. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall not commit or indulge in commission of any offence in future.

                  iv. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall cooperate with the Investigating Officer in further investigation of the case and shall make himself available for interrogation by the Investigating Officer as and when required.

                  v. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall not, directly or indirectly, make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him/her from disclosing such facts to the Court.

                  vi. The Petitioner/Accused No.7 shall surrender his passport, if any, to the investigating officer. If he claims that he does not have passport, he shall submit an affidavit to that effect to the Investigating Officer.