A makes a confession to the Director-General of Police (D.G.P.), the highest police officer of a state. Is the confession made by A relevant?

Question: A makes a confession to the Director-General of Police (D.G.P.), the highest police officer of a state. Is the confession made by A relevant?

Find the answer to the mains question only on Legal Bites. [A makes a confession to the Director-General of Police (D.G.P.), the highest police officer of a state. Is the confession made by A relevant?]

Answer

Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act talks about Confession to police officers not to be proved. It states: No confession made to a police officer1, shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence.

A confession made to a police officer while the accused is in the custody or made before he became an accused, is not provable against him in any proceeding in which he is charged to the commission of an offence.

Equally a confession made by him, while in the custody of the police officer, to any other person is also not probable in a proceeding in which he is charged with the commission of the offence unless it is made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate. A police officer is inherently suspect of employing coercion to obtain a confession.

Therefore, the confession made to a police officer under section 25 should totally be excluded from evidence.

The legislative policy and practical reality emphasize that a statement obtained, while the accused is in police custody, truly be not the product of his free choice.

Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure enacts that neither statement made by any person to a police officer in the course of an investigation shall, if taken down in writing, be signed by the person making it, nor shall such writing be used as evidence.

The confessional part of the F.I.R cannot be used in evidence against the accused except to the limited extent allowed by section 27. But the non-confessional part can be used against him as evidence of conduct under section 8.

The term as to who is a police officer under this section applies to every police officer and is not restricted to officers in a regular police force. The Supreme Court has held in the case of Raja Ram v. State of Bihar, AIR 1964 SC 828 that the test for determining whether a person is a police officer for purposes of this section would be whether the powers of a police officer which are conferred on him or which are exercisable by him establish a direct or substantial relationship with the prohibition enacted by this section, that is relating to the recording of a confession.

It is immaterial whether the confession was made to the lowest rank officer of police or to the highest police officer of a state. Therefore, in the present case at hand, the fact that A makes his confession to the Director-General of Police (D.G.P.), the highest police officer of a state will be hit by the ban imposed by section 25, Indian Evidence Act.

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Important Mains Questions Series for Judiciary, APO & University Exams

1. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-I
2. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-II
3. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-III
4. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-IV
5. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-V
6. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-VI
7. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-VII
8. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-VIII
9. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-IX
10. Law of Evidence Mains Questions Series Part-X