Procedure relating to arrests, searches etc.

Save as in this Act otherwise expressly provided, the provisions of the [Code of Criminal Procedure 1973]1 relating to arrests, detentions in custody, searches, summonses warrants of arrests, search warrants, production of persons arrested and investigation of offences shall be held to be applicable to all actions taken in these respects under this Act, provided that :-

1. (1) any offence under this Act may be investigated by an officer empowered under Section 46 without the order of a Magistrate.
2. (2) whenever an excise officer below the rank of Collector makes any arrest, seizure or search he shall within twenty four hours thereafter make, a full report of all the particulars of the arrest, seizure or search to his immediate official superior and shall unless bail be accented under Section 73 take or send the person arrested or the article seized, with all convenient despatch to a 2[Judicial Magistrate] for trial or adjudication.

¹ Substituted vide Punjab Act No. 20 of 1998.

² substituted for the word "Magistrate" by the Punjab Separation of Judicial and Executive Functions Act, 1963 (Punjab Act No. 25 of 1964.)