All you need to know about 167 crpc
Definition of arrest and Section 167 of Cr.PC
Supreme Court of India
State Of Haryana & Ors vs Dinesh Kumar on 8 January, 2008
arrest when used in its ordinary and natural sense, means the apprehension or restraint or the deprivation of one's personal liberty. The question whether the person is under arrest or not, depends not on the legality of the arrest, but on whether he has been deprived of his personal liberty to go where he pleases. When used in the legal sense in the procedure connected with criminal offences, an arrest consists in the taking into custody of another person under authority empowered by law, for the purpose of holding or detaining him to answer a criminal charge or of preventing the commission of a criminal offence. The essential elements to constitute an arrest in the above sense are that there must be an intent to arrest under the authority, accompanied by a seizure or detention of the person in the manner known to law, which is so understood by the person arrested. In this connection, a debatable question that arises for our consideration is whether the mere taking into custody of a person by an authority empowered to arrest would amount to arrest of that person and whether the terms arrest and custody are synonymous.
When is a person in custody, within the meaning of S. 439 Cr. P.C.? When he is, in duress either because he is held by the investigating agency or other police or allied authority or is under the control of the court having been remanded by judicial order, or having offered himself to the courts jurisdiction and submitted to its orders by physical presence.
Uttar Pradesh vs. Deomen (AIR 1960 SC 1125) wherein it was interalia observed as follows:-
Section 46, Cr.P.C. does not contemplate any formality before a person can be said to be taken in custody. Submission to the custody by words of mouth or action by a person is sufficient. A person directly giving a police officer by word of mouth information which may be used as evidence against him may be deemed to have submitted himself to the custody of the Police Officer.