New Delhi: The Supreme Court has noted that information received from people while police conduct a discreet or open enquiry before an FIR is filed cannot be recognised as a ‘statement’ under the Code of Criminal Procedure’s Section 160. They, therefore, cannot be used against the accused during a trial, LiveLaw has reported.
The section deals with a police officer’ s power to require attendance of witnesses for interrogation.
A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah noted that such a statement cannot be counted as a confession, and if it is, the argument would arise that it would be self-incriminatory – and thus not permissible.
A statement received in the course of such an enquiry would only assist the purpose of finding out whether an “offence is disclosed” and nothing further, the apex court said.
The role of confessions in trials has always been under the radar of activists and legal experts. Recently, they have come into focus in the Delhi police’s investigation into the February 2020 riots in the city.
Also read: Delhi Riots: Man Who ‘Named’ Pinjra Tod Activists in Confession Says He Doesn’t Know Them
The court was hearing an appeal against a Bombay high court dismissal of a challenge against a Nagpur police notice to a person under Section 160. The Anti-Corruption Bureau had called the appellant in to enquire into a complaint against him over the accumulation of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, reported LiveLaw.
The appellant had said that since he was not a witness in the case, the section would not apply. Police said the enquiry would enable it to ascertain if “cognisable offence is disclosed or not.”
The bench cited Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh and said that enquiries in the stage before filing an FIR were desirable and ensured that only complaints that were genuine and had substance were escalated into FIRs.
However, LiveLaw noted that the court further observed, referring to the impugned notice, “that the information sought therein has a direct connection with the allegations made i.e. accumulating assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.”
To this, the court said that such a statement goes beyond the purpose of ascertaining whether an offence under Section 13(1)(e) of the PC Act, 1988 is disclosed. They thus, cannot be treated in a confessional manner.