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24. Article 21 of the Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. It will be a misconceived argument to say that whenever any person is arrested either by police or by an officer of any other Government department authorised to make arrest his detention which obviously must amount to deprivation of personal liberty must be dealt with only under Section 167, Cr. P. C. as the said section prescribes a procedure for detention. It is needless to mention however that Section 167, Cr. P.C. is not the only procedure of detention. Article 22(2) itself requires that a person arrested and detained in custody will have to be produced before the nearest Magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest excluding the journey period. By way of giving protection to the substantive legal right of an individual as well as by way of providing procedural safeguard Article 22(2) itself requires that any detention in custody beyond the aforesaid period must be authorised by a Magistrate. Then again, when a person under arrest is produced before a Magistrate under Section 437, Cr. P.C. such person may pray to the Magistrate for being released on bail and this is a procedural safeguard available to the arrested person against arbitrary or unwarranted detention. If the Magistrate considers that the arrested person should be released on bail he shall direct accordingly. But if the Magistrate considers it to be not a fit case for release of the person at that stage he will refuse bail under Section 437, Cr. P.C. and authorise detention of the arrested person in proper custody in which case he may again apply to the Magistrate for bail at a later stage or may apply before the Sessions Judge or the High Court for being released on bail under Section 439, Cr. P.C. The grounds on which bail may be granted or refused at any particular stage of a proceeding in exercise of the judicial discretion of the court have, by now, been settled by plethora of authoritative judicial pronouncements during a period nearly covering a century. Therefore it cannot be said that where a Magistrate authorises the detention of a person in custody by exercising his power under Section 437, Cr. P.C. after refusal of bail, such detention is not in accordance with the procedure of law although Section 167, Cr. P.C. may not be attracted to the case. Even if Section 167, Cr. P.C. is not attracted to a case of detention yet the person detained has a right to approach the Magistrate for being released on bail on the ground of long pendency of proceeding before filing of complaint in a case cropping up from the Customs Act and the Magistrate may, although he might have refused bail at the initial stage, grant bail at a later or subsequent stage of the proceeding if having regard to the facts and circumstances of any particular case he considers it proper to do so in exercise of his sound judicial discretion. The opportunity of the detained person to approach the Magistrate for bail at any stage of the proceeding or even the higher courts is a part of the procedure of law relating to detention in custody which a Magistrate may authorise in exercise of his power under Section 437, Cr. P.C. In a fit and right case a person detained for an unduly long period or suffering the brunt of pendency of a proceeding for an unduly long time can approach the High Court for quashing the proceeding for violation of the right to speedy trial flowing from Article 21. Even if in a police investigation case where charge-sheet has been submitted within the period prescribed under Section 167, Cr. P.C. the accused, if detained in custody and not entitled to bail as a matter of right, may still approach the Magistrate or the court for bail during the pendency of the proceeding or trial and may even approach the High Court for quashing the proceeding for violation of Article 21 due to long pendency of the proceeding. In what circumstances long pendency of proceeding may warrant grant of bail or quashing of the same is however a question which has been settled by various decisions of the Apex Court. On circumspection of all relevant aspects, I am however clearly of the opinion that non-application of Section 167, Cr. P.C. to a criminal proceeding cropping up from the Customs Act does not bring in any deadlock nor deprives the arrested and detained person of the procedural safeguards of law. Therefore there is also no circumstantial compulsion to import Section 167, Cr. P.C. to a proceeding in respect of an offence under the Customs Act. Accordingly I hold that Section 167, Cr. P.C. is not attracted to a proceeding in respect of an offence under the Customs Act or in respect of a person produced under arrest before a Magistrate under Section 104 of the Customs Act.