SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 15 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 17 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

What is the maximum detention period a Magistrate can authorize under Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita(BNSS), 2023, for offences punishable with less than 10 years, before default bail applies?

(a)15 days
(b)30 days
(c)60 days
(d)90 days

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Section 187(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 caps total detention at ninety days for offences punishable with death, life imprisonment or ten years or more, and at sixty days for "any other offence".

An offence punishable with less than 10 years is "any other offence". When sixty days expire, the accused "shall be released on bail" if they furnish it, the bail the stem calls default bail: option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
15 days — 15 days is the Section 187(2) cap on custody a Magistrate orders, taken whole or in parts within the first forty or sixty days. It is not the total before bail.
(b)
30 days — Section 187 sets no 30-day limit. Its totals are sixty and ninety days, chosen by the punishment the offence carries.
(d)
90 days — 90 days is the cap for offences punishable with death, life imprisonment or ten years or more. The stem's offence carries less than 10 years.

Concept

BNSS, 2023 repealed the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Its Section 187 keeps the two-tier limit of the old Section 167 on detention while police investigate.

The tier depends on the punishment: death, life or ten years and more gets ninety days, every other offence sixty. When the limit runs out, the accused is to be released on bail on furnishing it.

The stem's "less than 10 years" is its own paraphrase. The statute defines only the ninety-day tier, death, life or ten years or more, and puts "any other offence" in the sixty-day tier.

Key facts

BNSS Section 187(3): total detention may not exceed ninety days (death, life, or ten years or more) or sixty days (any other offence).
BNSS Section 187(2): custody ordered by a Magistrate may not exceed fifteen days in the whole, or in parts, within the initial forty or sixty days.
BNSS Section 531(1) repeals the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita received the President's assent on 25 December 2023.

Study next

BNSS Section 58: no detention beyond twenty-four hours without a Magistrate's orderBharatiya Nyaya Samhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, the other two 2023 criminal lawsArticle 22: protection against arrest and detention

Common traps

Picking 90 days as the bigger, safer-sounding number: it belongs to offences punishable with ten years or more.
Reading the 15-day figure as the total: it caps the custody ordered within the opening forty or sixty days.

Here a BNSS number is asked through the punishment tier it belongs to. Other BNSS provisions appear at 21 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.5 (technology in the new procedure) and 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.17 (access to FIRs).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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