The D.K. Basu Guidelines are a set of mandatory requirements laid down by the Supreme Court of India to be followed by police and other agencies during arrest and detention. This judicial concept originated from the landmark judgment in D.K. Basu vs. State of West Bengal (1997). The judgment was delivered on December 18, 1996, in response to the increasing incidence of custodial violence, torture, and death, which violated the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The ratio of the judgment was that custodial violence infringes upon Article 21, and the Court issued 11 specific directions to safeguard the rights of arrestees.
The guidelines mandate that the police personnel carrying out the arrest must wear clear identification and name tags. A Memo of Arrest must be prepared at the time of arrest, attested by a witness (who may be a family member or respectable person of the locality), and countersigned by the arrestee. The arrestee has the right to have a friend or relative informed of the arrest and the place of detention as soon as practicable. Furthermore, the arrestee must be subjected to a medical examination by a trained doctor every 48 hours during detention.
These judicial directions were later incorporated into the statutory law of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), through the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2008. This amendment, which came into effect on November 1, 2010, codified the guidelines into provisions like Section 41B (procedure of arrest), Section 50A (obligation of the person making arrest to inform about the arrest), and Section 54 (medical examination of the arrested person). Failure to comply with the guidelines can result in departmental action and punishment for contempt of court.