Question:medium

If a person is arrested under UAPA and not given written grounds of arrest, can he be remanded or must he be released?

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Post–Prabir Purkayastha: Written grounds of arrest = prerequisite for valid custody. No written grounds = Custody becomes unconstitutional.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
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Approach Solution - 1

The short answer is that he must be released, not remanded, and the reasoning rests on treating this as a two-part test.

First, was the arrest itself lawful. Under Article 22(1), an arrested person must be told the grounds of arrest, and the Supreme Court in Prabir Purkayastha v. State (2024) held that under UAPA this information must be given in writing. If it was not, the arrest fails this test and is illegal from the moment it happened.

Second, can an illegal arrest still support a valid remand. It cannot. Remand is meant to extend an existing lawful custody while investigation continues; it is not a mechanism for fixing a custody that was never lawful to begin with. A Magistrate who orders remand without checking whether written grounds were given has not properly applied judicial mind to the legality of the custody before them.

Since the first condition fails here, the second question never gets to a yes. The person cannot be remanded and is entitled to release.

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Approach Solution -2

Someone unfamiliar with Prabir Purkayastha might argue that a missing written record is a paperwork lapse the Magistrate can overlook if the person otherwise knew, in general terms, why they were arrested. That argument does not survive the actual reasoning of the Supreme Court, and it is worth explaining why before stating the answer.

The argument for treating it as a curable lapse
One could say that as long as the police orally mentioned the offence and the FIR number, the person had some idea of the accusation, so refusing remand over a missing document seems to prioritise form over substance.

Why the Court rejected this
The Supreme Court specifically addressed this kind of argument in Prabir Purkayastha and rejected it, because UAPA cases involve complex, document-heavy allegations that cannot be meaningfully conveyed through a few spoken words at the time of arrest. Only a written statement of grounds lets the accused actually understand the specific basis of the allegation, share it with a lawyer, and prepare a considered response, including a bail application. Treating an oral gesture as good enough would let the safeguard in Article 22(1) become a formality rather than a real protection.

Why this defeats remand, not just the arrest
Once the arrest is illegal for want of written grounds, the illegality does not stay contained to the moment of arrest. A Magistrate's remand order is only as good as the custody it extends, and custody that started illegally has nothing valid for the remand order to extend. The Magistrate's job at that stage is to check legality, not assume it.

So the paperwork argument fails, and the outcome stands: without written grounds of arrest under UAPA, the person cannot be validly remanded and must be released.

\[ \boxed{\text{Release, not remand, because an illegal arrest cannot be cured by a later remand order.}} \]
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