The Supreme Court of India, recently, in Rajesh & Anr. vs The State of Madhya Pradesh, while setting aside the conviction of three accused persons alleged to have been involved in murder and related offences, emphasised the need to devise ‘a consistent and dependable code of investigation’ so that the guilty do not walk free on technicalities. The Court not only pointed out some illegalities in the investigation but also echoed the comments of the Justice Malimath Committee on Reforms of the Criminal Justice System and the observations of the Law Commission of India in its Report number 239. Here is a reality check on both these observations.
Varied interpretations
A major pitfall pointed out by the Court relates to Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act which lays down conditions of the admissibility of any fact discovered in consequence of information received from a person ‘accused of any offence’, ‘in the custody of a police officer’. The Court held that the person could not be said to be in police custody till he was formally arrested, as he did not figure as an accused person in the First Information Report (FIR) and was not accused of any offence till his arrest. This assumption does not appear to be a correct proposition of the law.
