This faculty seminar will feature a presentation by Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor, on ‘The Fugitive Truth in the Law of Confessions: How the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 lost and recovered its procedural safeguards.’

Abstract

The criminal justice system’s goal of uncovering the truth behind a crime is considered an important function. Yet, it is qualified by values which take the form of procedural rights and exclusionary rules in favour of the accused. Often, these rules are viewed as compromises on the law’s ability to discover the substantive truth, or to its efficacy. Arguments in favour of limiting these rights are common, and enjoy widespread approval. This paper argues that procedural rights must not be considered challenges to the discovery of the truth, but instead, as its veritable guarantees. Focusing on extra-judicial confessions under Indian law as its analytical site, it demonstrates that reducing procedural protections to their minimal formulaic scope in fact diminishes the probability of discovering the truth rather than enhancing it. The paper first undertakes an historical study of Indian law. This part demonstrates how issues around legislative drafting and judicial interpretation restricted the scope of procedural rights meant to protect the right against self-incrimination. These developments illustrate how conceptions of truth-seeking have influenced judicial decision making. This position eventually reached an inflection point in the Supreme Court’s decision of Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar, a ruling that placed procedure at the centre of the criminal process. This paper shows that apart from its important endorsement of the accused’s procedural rights, the Supreme Court in fact protected the criminal law’s burden and goal of uncovering the truth of crimes. To prove this, it undertakes a reconstruction of this judgment utilising the legal archive consisting of the original investigative and trial records of the case. This process upturns conventionally set ideas of the objective or substantive truth in criminal investigations, in turn showing the central importance of procedural rights to the same. The paper thus presents the debate around procedural rights in a new light, proving not just their theoretical, but practical and functional value in criminal law.