CLAT PG Current Affairs — 30 September 2026

Article 22(1) of the Constitution guarantees every arrested person the right to be informed of the grounds of arrest and to consult a lawyer. The Supreme Court has consistently held that failure to furnish written grounds renders detention illegal. Re-arrest following bail is not automatically barred but must independently satisfy Article 22(1) requirements. The Court treats oral communication of grounds as insufficient, and any detention that bypasses this safeguard is void from its inception.

Article 22 of the Constitution is divided into two distinct parts: clauses (1) and (2) protect ordinary arrested persons, while clauses (4) to (7) govern preventive detention. For CLAT PG, the critical doctrine lives in clauses (1) and (2).

Clause (1) confers three interlocking rights: the right to be informed of grounds of arrest, the right to consult and be defended by a counsel of choice, and the right not to be denied either. Clause (2) adds the right to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours, excluding travel time.

The Supreme Court in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (2023) elevated the standard by holding that grounds of arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act must be furnished in writing, not merely communicated orally. This ruling applies the Article 22(1) mandate with full force to PMLA arrests, overruling earlier practice.

On re-arrest: when a court grants bail and the accused is released, a re-arrest requires a fresh, independent satisfaction of Article 22(1). The earlier intimation of grounds does not carry forward. This is the principle the examiner is most likely to isolate — that constitutional safeguards are occasion-specific, not once-and-done.

Exceptions under Article 22 are equally testable: enemy aliens and persons detained under preventive detention laws are excluded from clauses (1) and (2) protections. The 44th Amendment reduced the maximum preventive detention period without advisory board reference from three months to two months, though this amendment has not been notified for all provisions.

The Supreme Court held that when a Magistrate takes cognizance and applies judicial mind to find a prima facie case after the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita came into force, Section 223 BNSS applies — requiring the accused to be heard before process is issued. The Court clarified that the governing law is determined by when cognizance is actually taken, not when the underlying complaint or FIR was filed, making the transition from CrPC to BNSS a critical procedural threshold.

This ruling addresses a fundamental transition problem created when the BNSS replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on July 1, 2024. Under the old CrPC, once a Magistrate took cognizance of an offence and found a prima facie case, process could be issued to the accused without first hearing them. Section 223 of the BNSS introduces a significant procedural safeguard: the accused must be given an opportunity of hearing before the Magistrate issues process (summons or warrant).

The core legal question was: which law governs — CrPC or BNSS — when the complaint was filed before July 1, 2024, but the Magistrate applied judicial mind and took cognizance after that date? The Supreme Court answered clearly: the date of cognizance, not the date of complaint, determines which procedural law applies. If cognizance is taken after BNSS came into force, Section 223 BNSS mandates a hearing for the accused.

This is doctrinally important because it establishes the 'date of cognizance' as the operative trigger for procedural law selection during statutory transitions. It also elevates the accused's right to be heard to the pre-process stage — a meaningful expansion of procedural fairness that did not exist under CrPC. For exam purposes, understanding the distinction between cognizance (Magistrate's mental act of applying judicial mind) and issuance of process (the consequential step) is essential, as is knowing exactly which BNSS section creates this new requirement.