Supreme Court frees SIT custody of custodial-death accused from prison-only and full-transit videography curbs
Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta set aside conditions confining interrogation to one prison and mandating non-stop transit videography, granting the SIT seven days of unrestricted police custody.
The Supreme Court has recast the terms on which a police inspector accused of a custodial death can be held in police custody, ruling that conditions imposed by the courts below had rendered the interrogation itself ineffective. In The State of Andhra Pradesh v. Suda Suresh Veera Venkata Naga Raju, a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta allowed the State’s appeal and modified the custody regime fixed by a Vijayawada Magistrate and partly retained by the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
The Court set aside the condition confining all interrogation to Central Prison, Rajamahendravaram, and clarified that videography need not capture every minute of transit. It granted the Special Investigation Team seven days of custody with unrestricted access, while keeping intact the safeguards against coercion and third-degree methods.
How the custody dispute reached the Court
The respondent, an Inspector of Police, is arraigned in Crime No. 107 of 2026 at Krishna Lanka Police Station, Vijayawada, over the alleged custodial death of Gade Sai Krishna on 6 May 2026. As per the prosecution, the deceased was apprehended at Markapur at about 3:00 a.m., brought to the station around 7:00 a.m., handed over to the sentry and then entrusted to the respondent along with his mobile phone. He was never produced before a Magistrate, and witnesses reportedly saw him at the station with visible injuries.
The victim’s mother moved a habeas corpus petition (Writ Petition No. 15132 of 2026) on 2 June 2026. During those proceedings, the respondent suppressed the fact that the deceased had been apprehended and held. He was suspended on 17 June 2026. On 19 June 2026 the mother lodged a complaint alleging illegal detention, custodial torture resulting in death, and disappearance of the body. Crime No. 107 of 2026 followed, registered for offences under Sections 127(4), 127(6), 103(1) and 238 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Preliminary examination of the seized DVRs showed no CCTV footage for the crucial period. The State constituted an SIT on 21 June 2026. The respondent was arrested on 23 June 2026 and remanded to judicial custody on 24 June 2026 at Central Prison, Rajamahendravaram.
On 25 June 2026 the prosecution sought twelve days of police remand under Section 187 of the BNSS, citing the need to trace the deceased, identify co-accused, recover evidence, confront the accused with falsified records and reconstruct the crime scene. By order dated 2 July 2026 the Magistrate granted eight days of police custody, from 3 to 10 July 2026, but confined it to the prison premises with fifteen numbered conditions, including nomination of two advocates, continuous uninterrupted videography, and an absolute outer limit on custody.
What the State challenged
The State assailed Conditions 28.1, 28.4, 28.5, 28.10, 28.13, 28.14 and 28.15 before the High Court under Section 528 of the BNSS, arguing that confining interrogation to the prison and mandating an omnibus regime of continuous videography rendered police custody illusory. The High Court partly allowed the petition, shifted the custody window to 9–16 July 2026, allowed the SIT to take the accused to the scene of offence, but directed that every movement of the accused between the prison and Vijayawada be videographed, and kept the remaining conditions intact.
Senior counsel Sidharth Luthra for the State argued that the conditions, though modified, amounted to direct intervention in the investigating agency’s statutory right to interrogate, proceeding on a pre-conceived notion that the SIT would resort to third-degree methods. The transit videography direction, he said, effectively forced interrogation only at the prison, some 160 kilometres away, denying the agency its own interrogation centre with scientific facilities.
Senior counsel L. Narasimha Reddy for the respondent opposed the appeal, urging that the accused had arrested criminals lodged at the Vijayawada prison and his life would be at risk there, and that the restrictions merely reiterated constitutional protections.
What the Court held on the conditions
The Court confined itself to the “narrow question of the legality and workability” of the custody conditions. It found the agency’s apprehension of frustrated investigation “realistic and justified”, while holding that the accused’s safety was already secured by the bar on coercion and third-degree methods, joint and several responsibility of the named officers, and Article 21 itself.
Confining the entire interrogation to Central Prison, Rajamahendravaram, was held neither justified nor sustainable. The offence occurred near Krishna Lanka Police Station, the body remained untraced, the CCTV hard disks were unrecovered, and discoveries under Section 23 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (erstwhile Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872) were said to be imminent. The efficacy of that process depended on taking the accused to the actual place of discovery, not interrogating him from 160 kilometres away.
On the custody window, the Court read Section 187(2) and (3) of the BNSS as enlarging the period during which police custody, not exceeding fifteen days in aggregate, may be sought in parts across the first forty or sixty days. It held Condition 28.15, which placed an absolute non-extendable outer limit, unsustainable because it foreclosed recourse to the statutory window regardless of what investigation might reveal.
Advocate presence and videography
Turning to Section 38 of the BNSS, the Court held the right is to meet an advocate of choice during interrogation, “though not throughout interrogation”. The provision does not contemplate the continuous physical presence of a lawyer for the entirety of each session. Conditions regulating the manner and distance of the advocate’s presence were held unobjectionable and salutary, but any reading conferring an unqualified right to continuous presence would exceed what Section 38 contemplates.
On videography, the Court agreed the safeguard protects both accused and agency and should ordinarily be retained. It found the direction to continuously videograph every movement, including a three-hour transit each way over roughly 160 kilometres, unworkable. Interruptions from movement, signal loss, battery, storage or security were inherent to road travel, and it would be self-defeating to draw an inference of impropriety from such breaks. What the safeguard requires is contemporaneous recording of the interrogation itself, not every minute of transit.
The accused’s safety concern about a Vijayawada facility was met by directing that interrogation outside the prison be conducted at the SIT’s designated interrogation centre or an equivalent secure facility under police control, with continuing joint and several responsibility on the named officers. The Court found no material beyond a “bald and unverified apprehension” to show the centre was unsafe.
Order
The Court modified the custody terms. Police custody would run for seven days from the date of production of the accused before the Magistrate pursuant to the judgment, keeping the total police remand within fifteen days. The Investigating Officer was given unrestricted access for interrogation.
The condition confining interrogation to Central Prison, Rajamahendravaram, was set aside, and the SIT permitted to interrogate at its designated centre or an equivalent facility at Vijayawada. CCTV and videographic supervision was retained but satisfied by audio-visual recording of the actual interrogation sessions and any discovery or recovery proceedings, not transit. The bar on threat, coercion and third-degree methods was retained.
The lawyer’s presence within the site of interrogation, without intervening in the process, was retained. Footage in original form, with a certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (corresponding to Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872), was to be produced before the Vijayawada Magistrate on completion of custody. The named officers and the jail superintendent or officer-in-charge were held jointly and severally responsible for the accused’s safety. The SIT was directed to conduct an impartial, fair and scientific investigation in accordance with law. The appeal was allowed in these terms.