What are the D.K. Basu guidelines which were laid down by the Supreme Court of…

Concept: Under Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) read with Article 32, the Supreme Court can lay down binding procedural safeguards against State excesses -- such as custodial violence -- even before Parliament enacts a specific statute; such judgment-based guidelines operate as law until superseded by legislation.

Application: In D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997), responding to rising custodial deaths and torture, the Supreme Court laid down eleven specific requirements that police must follow during arrest, detention and interrogation -- for example, preparing a memo of arrest attested by a witness, informing a friend or relative of the arrestee, permitting the arrestee to meet their lawyer during interrogation, recording any injuries on the arrestee's body in an inspection memo at the time of arrest, and a mandatory medical examination every 48 hours during custody. These are exactly the procedures to be followed by police for arrest, detention and interrogation described in the keyed option.

Cross-check -- how the other named frameworks differ:

• Guidelines on sexual harassment at the workplace were laid down separately in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997), an unrelated ruling.

• Protection of children from hazardous employment is governed by Article 24 and child-labour legislation, a different subject altogether.

• Protection of women from domestic violence is addressed by a dedicated 2005 statute, not by any Supreme Court arrest/custody ruling.

So the D.K. Basu guidelines specifically concern the procedures police must follow for arrest, detention and interrogation.