The first would be to argue that the interpretation of ‘custody’ in Niranjan Singh and Sundeep Kumar Bafna could be satisfied even if physical control has been exercised over Person X through another court in another offence. This may satisfy the language of Niranjan Singh which provides that “custody, in the context of Section 439….is physical control or at least physical presence of the accused in court”.
However, there may be myriad issues with this approach, and it would be somewhat at war with how the criminal justice system operates. A better, more practical approach would be to argue that in cases where a person is already in custody in another case, Section 439 could be interpreted liberally to enable surrendering before a court even through video conferencing. The court in Kerala could be requested to issue production warrants to direct Person X’s appearance before it through video conferencing, saving a huge amount of hassle and waste of valuable resources.
Source: Barandbench
