For those who missed it, Sregurupriya made a powerful critique of the recent Supreme Court decision in Prahlad v. State of Rajasthan [Crl. Appeal 1794-96 of 2017, decided on 14.11.2018], where a three Justices' bench upheld a murder conviction because the defendant failed to convincingly explain the incriminating circumstances in the case. Sregurupriya argued that the decision gravely dilutes the right to silence, constitutionally guaranteed to defendants under Article 20(3) which protects against compelled self-incrimination. In this short postscript, I offer two, very loosely related, points. First, I question the continued relevance of the statutory provision that allows for this judicial questioning of the defendant - Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code [Cr.P.C.] 1973. Second, I suggest that the right to silence was already extremely diluted in India, with the need for a relook starting much before the 313 stage which was the focus in Prahlad.
Do We Still Need Section 313 Cr.P.C.?
Let me make a brief detour to recount the ordinary trial procedure for offences punishable with more than two years imprisonment. After the court frames charges, the prosecution is asked to furnish its evidence wherein witnesses are called and documents / materials are exhibited. Once the prosecution has closed its case, we enter the Section 313 Cr.P.C. phase - where the judge, with the help of prosecutor and defence counsel, poses questions to the defendant who is required to answer them, even if only to tell the court "I do not remember" or "I do not know".
This seems decidedly wrong. What about the defendant's constitutional right to silence, and all the rhetoric about the presumption of innocence with the prosecution shouldering the burden of proof? Section 313 Cr.P.C. is, purportedly, intended to support all of this by giving an opportunity to the defendant to explain the incriminating facts without swearing on oath. It is nothing more than actualising the great principle of giving the person a right to be heard - audi alteram partem [See, pages 45-46 of the 154th Law Commission Report (Vol. 1)]. Since the law treats the Section 313 Cr.P.C. statement as evidence, it means the court can rely on this explanation as well. As Prahlad illustrated, that reliance is clearly not restricted to acquittals alone.
The contradiction at the heart of this justification should be obvious: Why do courts need to call on explanations from defendants if they are presumed to be innocent until guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt, especially since defendants can take the stand and give the evidence themselves? There, I think, lies an important truth: Section 313 Cr.P.C. has been around from times when defendants had no right to give evidence. A verbatim provision was present as Section 342 in the 1898 Cr.P.C., and under that Code defendants had no right to testify up till the mid 1950s. In that setting, something like a 313 statement made sense as defendants had no other recourse to address potentially bogus theories of the prosecution. Once we confer upon defendants the right to speak at trial, the formerly benevolent provision begins to assume a more sinister role.
As Sregurupriya illustrated in her post, Supreme Court decisions have repeatedly told trial courts to not use the Section 313 Cr.P.C. statement to fill gaps in the prosecution case, nor to draw adverse inferences against the defendant based on answers in that statement. What does that tell us? It shows that despite persistent reminders from the highest Court, trial court judges can't help but act like human beings: It's only natural to expect an innocent person to explain away circumstances and those guilty to remain quiet. Which is why scholars have also persistently reminded us that the entire idea of a right to silence is counterintuitive to most people. To put it bluntly, you can't tell judges that they can make defendants answer their questions and then expect the same judges to be selective in their appreciation of the responses. Section 313 Cr.P.C., thus, will always hinder the right to silence, if not in law then in practice. Maybe it's time to reconsider its utility.
Whither the Right to Silence?
News reported that India's Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI], the premier investigating agency [recently discussed here], successfully petitioned the trial court to extend the pretrial custodial remand of Christian Michel - at the centre of a big financial conspiracy case. The reason? Because of his "non-cooperation" and his "evasive answers" in the interrogation. For those unfamiliar with the Indian criminal process, it might take two seconds to digest this: in a system purportedly conferring a constitutional right to silence, how can pretrial custody be extended for "non-cooperation" with police investigations? And yet, that is the reality, common for defendants across the spectrum.
Having experienced this reality first-hand for some time now, the decision in Prahlad did not come as a surprise to me. Even on the matter of judicial policy and precedent, Prahlad is only the newest page in a long, long chapter of Supreme Court decisions that have positively denuded the right to silence of any substance. Allow me to demonstrate this with a simple example. Imagine that the Delhi Police lodge a First Information Report alleging that Person X stole a car, thus committed theft and arrest her. Also imagine that a Customs Officer arrests Person Y on allegations of smuggling gold into India. Today, Person Y will have no right to silence till the start of trial. Replace the customs offence with any offence which is not investigated by the police and you get the same result, despite being arrested. Why? Because of the Supreme Court's consistent position to require a "formal" accusation, the absence of which is sufficient to ignore all substance — a position that I have strongly criticised earlier [see here, here, and here].
If the stakeholders in the Indian criminal process really do wish to honour the right to silence, then a lot of the existing law must be reconsidered. Section 313 and statements at trial will come much later in that process, which first requires taking a long hard look at how investigations are conducted. This is not something radical — India has been crying out for "scientific" investigations since the mid-1950s. But with each passing year, as decisions like Prahlad are rendered which further diminish the scope of a right to silence, the guarantee of Article 20(3) might well be rendered an ignoble epitaph for our transformative Constitution itself.
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