D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal
Laid down binding safeguards on arrest and detention to prevent custodial torture and deaths.
The background
A letter to the Chief Justice highlighting a series of custodial deaths in West Bengal was treated as a public-interest petition. The Court took up the wider question of how to protect citizens from torture and death in police custody.
The decision
The Court issued a set of binding guidelines for every arrest and detention: police must wear clear identification, prepare an arrest memo signed by a witness, inform a relative or friend of the arrest, allow the arrestee a medical examination, and record the grounds of arrest. Breach of these safeguards invites departmental action and contempt of court.
What it changed
The judgment converted the abstract protections of Articles 21 and 22 into concrete, enforceable rights for anyone who is arrested. The D.K. Basu safeguards were later absorbed into the criminal procedure code and remain the benchmark for a lawful arrest in India.