Need to change legal provisions under section 162 CrPC A few days ago, I had talked over the issue of confession before the police officer in India. There I had quoted section 25 and section 26 of the Evidence Act which bar confession made before a police officer inadmissible in a court of law in our country. Having presented the situation in various western countries, I had finally argued that most of the Western countries have provisions for believing in the confessions made by accused before the police officer. They prima-facie move from believing these statement while sadly in our case, from the very beginning we presume that any confession made before the police would invariably be through threat or coercion or violence or oppression. Section 162 says- Statements to police not to be signed: Use of statements in evidence. (1) No statement made by any person to a police officer in the course of' an investigation under this Chapter, shall, if reduced to writing, be signed by the person making it, nor shall any such statement or any record thereof, whether in a police diary or otherwise, or any part of such statement or record, be used for any purpose, save as hereinafter provided, at any inquiry or trial in respect of any offence under investigation at the time when such statement was made: Thus the entire purpose of such an exercise of taking statement of the witness and reducing it in writing gets defeated and it becomes nothing more than a mockery. Moreover, it also becomes a tool which might act as a whipping lash for other agencies (including the Judiciary) to condemn police. Why is it so? The reason is that while a police officer writes down the statements but keeps it unsigned and unverified, it loses all its relevance and importance. It is no longer a verifiable and authentic document. Firstly it gives a tool to the police officer to write down whatever she/he feels like and what seems to suit the course of investigation. Thus when the witness is saying A, the police officer can write it down as B because there is no responsibility to show it to the witness and get it signed. What is the purpose of such an exercise? I myself know of examples where the police officer has written down statement of a possible witness, sitting in the police station, when the person was already dead and gone. If the investigating officer had the responsibility of getting the statement signed by the witness, could this have happened? Then there is another facet to it. Even when the police officer has written down the correct statement, since it is not signed hence the witness faces no responsibility to verify it. He/she can always dismiss these statements as being untrue. Thus, the investigation prima-facie becomes shady and the big exercise of writing down so many pages of unsigned statements becomes useless. What would the solution to such a situation? To me it seems that the best way out is to make it compulsory for the investigating officer to get the statement of witness signed and then to provide the witness with a copy of that. This will ensure responsibility on both sides. Again to add further checks and balances, here again there shall be need for introduction of large number of conditionalities, ifs and buts,. These conditions, norms, warnings and due protections are certainly needed so that none of the two sides take advantage of the lack of such terms, conditions and due protections. This would include giving proper warning to the witness as regards their right to keep silence. There might also be provision for the witness to keep another person (including a legal advisor), if the witness asks for it and to get the sign of this person again on the statement. But once such conditions are imposed and such safeguards taken, this change in the current provision of law would be worth taking because it will help remove a black scar on the Indian police and Indian mentality but will also positively assist in the deliverance of justice. Amitabh Thakur, IPS, currently at IIM Lucknow 94155-34526 http://amitabhthakur.sulekha.com/blog/post/2010/12/need-to-change-legal-provisions-under-section-162.htm http://www.peoplesforumindia.com/Amitabh%20Police%20essays.htm |
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