Custody - Indian Laws - General

Meaning of term Custody The Oxford Dictionary (online) defines custody- as imprisonment, detention, confinement, incarceration, internment, captivity; remand, duress, and durance. The Cambridge Dictionary (online) explains- custody as the state of being kept in prison, especially while waiting to go to court for trial. Longman Dictionary (online) defines- custody as when someone is kept in prison until they go to court, because the police think they have committed a crime . Chambers Dictionary (online) clarifies that- custody is the condition of being held by the police; arrest or imprisonment; to take someone into custody to arrest them . Chambers Thesaurus supplies several synonyms, such as detention, confinement, imprisonment, captivity, arrest, formal incarceration. The Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advance Learners states- in terms of that someone who is in custody or has been taken into custody or has been arrested and is being kept in prison until they get tried in a court or if someone is being held in a particular type of custody, they are being kept in a place that is similar to a prison. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary postulates- the presence of confinement, imprisonment, durance and this feature is totally absent in the factual matrix before us. The Corpus Juris Secundum under the topic of Escape Related Offenses; Rescue adumbrates that- Custody, within the meaning of statutes defining the crime, consists of the detention or restraint of a person against his or her will, or of the exercise of control over another to confine the other person within certain physical limits or a restriction of ability or freedom of movement. This is how Custody is dealt with in Black s Law Dictionary, (9th ed. 2009):- Custody- The care and control of a thing or person. The keeping, guarding, care, watch, inspection, preservation or security of a thing, carrying with it the idea of the thing being within the immediate personal care and control of the person to whose custody it is subjected. Immediate charge and control, and not the final, absolute control of ownership, implying responsibility for the protection and preservation of the thing in custody. Also the detainer of a man s person by virtue of lawful process or authority. The term is very elastic and may mean actual imprisonment or physical detention or mere power, legal or physical, of imprisoning or of taking manual possession. Term custody within statute requiring that petitioner be in custody to be entitled to federal habeas corpus relief does not necessarily mean actual physical detention in jail or prison but rather is synonymous with restraint of liberty. U. S. ex rel. Wirtz v. Sheehan, D.C.Wis, 319 F.Supp. 146, 147. Accordingly, persons on probation or released on own recognizance have been held to be in custody for purposes of habeas corpus proceedings. A perusal of the dictionaries thus discloses that the concept that is created is the controlling of a person s liberty in the course of a criminal investigation, or curtailing in a substantial or significant manner a person s freedom of action. Our attention has been drawn, in the course of Rejoinder arguments to the judgment of the Full Bench of the High Court of Madras in Roshan Beevi vs Joint Secretary - 1983 (11) TMI 290 - MADRAS HIGH COURT , as also to the decision of the Court in Directorate of Enforcement vs Deepak Mahajan- 1 994 (1) TMI 87 - SUPREME COURT ; in view of the composition of both the Benches, reference to the former is otiose. Had we been called upon to peruse Deepak Mahajan earlier, we may not have considered it necessary to undertake a study of several Dictionaries, since it is a convenient and comprehensive compendium on the meaning of arrest, detention and custody. [SUNDEEP KUMAR BAFNA VERSUS STATE OF MAHARASHTRA ANR- 2015 (8) TMI 724 - SUPREME COURT]