Karnataka Criminal Rules of Practice for recording of confession of Accused

  Karnataka Criminal Rules of Practice

 

Rule-5 (Chapter-V) of the Karnataka Criminal Rules of Practice, 1968 which reads as under:

5. Recording of Confession Statements

(1) When an accused person is produced before a Magistrate for recording a confession statement, the Magistrate shall explain to him that he is before a Magistral, that he is under no obligation at all to make any statement, that he is under no obligation at all to make any statement, that he is free to make a statement or refrain from making any as he pleases, that it is not intended to take him as an approver and that anything said by him will be taken down and thereafter may be used as evidence against him.

The Magistrate shall make a record of the fact that he has complied with the above requirements.

[Vide Section 164(2) of the Code]

(2)(a) A Magistrate may put such questions as he considers necessary to assure himself that the accused is making the statement voluntarily.?

(underlined and emphasis supplied)

(b) Further, the Magistrate shall put the following questions:?

(i) When were you arrested.,

(ii) When did the police first question you?

(iii) How often did they question you?

(iv) Were you detained any where before you were taken to custody? If so, when and where?

(v) Were you induced to make a confession statement and are you making the statements as a result of any ill-treatment?

(c) The questions put by the Magistrate as well as the answers given by the accused shall be reduced to writing.

(3) If the accused person, after being so questioned. Still expresses a desire to make a statement, the Magistrate shall give him reasonable time for reflection, which shall ordinarily be not less than 24 hours. During this period he shall be kept in judicial custody.

 

(4) When the accused person is produced before the Magistrate after the expiry of the period so granted, he shall again warn the accused that he is not bound to make any statement and that any statement made by him may be used against him during the trial of the case.

 

(5) If the accused still desires to make a statement, and the Magistrate is satisfied that he is doing so voluntarily, the Magistrate shall record the statement of the accused.

 

(6) The Magistrate shall record the statement of the accused in Court and during Court hours, save for exceptional reasons to be recorded in writing.

 

(7) The Magistrate shall see that during the questioning of the accused and the recording of his statement, there are no police officers either in the Courthouse or in the vicinity.

 

(8) Every question put to the accused and every answer made by him shall be recorded in full.

 

(9) The accused person shall be questioned in the language known to him and the answer given by him shall be recorded in his own words, as far as possible.

 

(10) After recording the statement of the accused, the same shall be read out and explained to him in the language known to him and the fact of having read the statement to the accused and the accused having admitted its correctness shall be recorded.

 

(11) The Magistrate shall thereafter append a certificate as required by Section 164(3) of the Code.?

Apart from asking mandatory questions the magistrate may put above mentioned questions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error: Content is protected !!