Protecting the Rights of Accused

In a landmark judgment, the Court held that confession to officers under the Act is not admissible as evidence during trial and infringes on the Constitution. This will have ramifications for the Rhea Chakraborty case as well as others

- Rahul Shyam Bhandari

ON October 29, 2020, the Supreme Court passed a significant judgment in Toofan Singh vs State of Tamil Nadu, under the NDPS Act (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985). It ruled that officers authorised to investigate NDPS cases are “police officers” for the purpose of Section 25 of the Evidence Act and hence confessional statements made to them are not admissible in law for the purpose of conviction.

Section 25 of the Evidence Act bars admission of any confession made to a police officer. The 308-page judgment consists of both majority (2) and minority views (1). The Constitution Bench was answering two broad issues referred to it by a division bench. First was whether an officer investigating a matter under the NDPS Act would qualify as a police officer and second, whether a statement recorded by an investigating officer under Section 67 of the Act can be treated as a confessional statement even if the officer is not treated as a police officer.

Answering this, the majority bench of Justices RF Nariman and Navin Sinha gave an intriguing insight into Article 20 (3) and the Right to Privacy. The right against self-incrimination in Article 20 (3) means that no person accused of an offence can be compelled to speak against himself. This right has been recognised in various constitutional verdicts, wherein it was held that this protection can extend to any compulsory process for production of evidentiary documents too. This is a principle which is a fundamental canon of the British system of criminal jurisprudence and has been adopted by the American system too.