Section 167 of the CrPC empowers the Magistrate to authorise detention of an accused who is arrested and brought before him by the police. The Madras High Court in Re: MR Venkataraman and Ors had elucidated that the Magistrate, in the exercise of Section 167 CrPC, has complete freedom to remand an accused person to whatsoever custody he thinks fit, without expressly limiting it to just police or judicial custody.
More recently, in Gautam Navlakha v. National Investigation Agency, the issue before the Supreme Court was whether the period of house arrest as ordered by the Delhi High Court would be included in the computation of 90 days of remand to avail default bail. The Court considered the scope of power of the Magistrate to authorise detention under Section 167 wherein it was held, inter alia, that the terms “such custody as it thinks fit”, as found in the Section, grants power to the Magistrate to order house arrest of the accused after considering factors such as his age, health condition, antecedents, nature of offence and the feasibility of carrying out such detention. As such, the power to detain an accused person under house arrest was read into the purview of Section 167 CrPC.
Source: Barandbench
