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(Submitted For The Project Undertaken in Partial Fulfilment of B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) V Sem. 5 Year Integrated Course at RMLNLU, Lucknow)
(Submitted For The Project Undertaken in Partial Fulfilment of B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) V Sem. 5 Year Integrated Course at RMLNLU, Lucknow)
LUCKNOW
PROJECT ON:
(Submitted for the project undertaken in partial fulfilment of B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)V Sem.
I want to express my deep gratitude to my educator Mr.(Dr.) Prem Kumar Gautam who
gave me the brilliant chance to finalize this glorious research subject; "Relevance of Section
161 and Section 164 of bail provisions" which has helped me pick up a mess of viewpoint
about the development of the role of Indian Judiciary and bail provisions. All through the
exploration period, I have been guided by my educator at whatever point I confronted any
obstacles or was in a state of daze not having the capacity to resolve the intricacies of the
subject.
I want to thank my University, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University,
educational program which without a doubt helps the comprehension of the subject.
I, likewise, want to thank my guardians, guides and well-wishers who have been a
consistent sunder pin and have sufficient energy and again looked into my work and have
- Anchal Singh
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION/ RELATING SECTIONs 161 and 164 WITH RELEASE OF A PERSON. .17
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................23
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INTRODUCTION
The facility of Bail mainly aims at social defence and individual correction. Justice Krishna
Iyer in one of his judgments stated that a developed jurisprudence of bail is integral to a
socially sensitized judicial process. The judicial discretion is an appeal to the judicial
conscience of the community reflected through a court of justice. Therefore, discretion cannot
be arbitrary, vague and fanciful but legal and regular. Coming to the point, sections 161 and
164 play an important role with respect to release of persons. Under Section 161 of the Code
of Criminal Procedure, “the Investigating Officer is empowered to examine orally any person
(including a suspect) who is supposed to be acquainted with the facts and circumstances of
the case, and he may reduce into writing the statement of each such person and when he does
so, he shall make a separate record of the statement of each such person whose statement he
records”. The objective of Section 164 of CrPC, is to ensure a method of securing record of
statements or confessions, that are made during the course of investigation by the police,
which could be used during trial or enquiry, if required. There are instances where the court
may acquit an accused/grant him bail because of the infirmity in recording the statements
The main issue is that no one should be derived of his personal liberty arbitrarily. Recording
made to police and magistrate respectively are of much importance. However, there can be
difference between these two recordings. Therefore, in this project, the author will try to
analyze the implications in such situations. The author will only cover relevant case laws and
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“The Judge, even when he is free, is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate
primordial necessity of order in the social life. Wide enough in all conscience
is the field of discretion that remains Even so it is useful to notice the tart
terms of Lord Camden that the discretion of a Judge is the law of tyrants: it is
the worst, it is every vice, folly and passion to which human nature is liable.”
Therefore, the accused party is detained in custody not due to his guilt but, because of lack of
sufficient grounds for the charge against him and to ensure his trial. It is also so because it’s
necessary to detain him for his appearance at trial. It is a very important element in
considering whether the party, if admitted to bail, would appear to take his trial.
In this context, it is rational to enquire into the past records of the man who is applying for
bail- particularly a record which suggests that he is likely to commit serious offences while
on bail. In regard to habitual, it is part of criminological history that a thoughtless bail order
has enabled the bailee to exploit the opportunity to inflict further crimes on the members of
society. Bail discretion, on the basis of evidence about the criminal record of a defendant is
sized up lest danger of excesses and injustice creep subtly into the discretionary curial
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technique. Bad record and police prediction of criminal prospects to invalidate the bail plea
are admissible in principle but shall not stampede the Court into a complacent refusal.
“In other non-bailable cases the Court will exercise its judicial discretion in
favour of granting bail subject to sub- section (3) of Section 437 CrPC if it deems
necessary to act under it. Unless exceptional circumstances are brought to the
notice of the Court which may defeat proper investigation and a fair trial, the
Court will not decline to grant bail to a person who is not accused of an offence
punishable with death or imprisonment for life. It is also clear that when an
accused is brought before the Court of a Magistrate with the allegation against
ordinarily no option in the matter but to refuse bail subject, however, to the first
proviso to Section 437(1) CrPC and in a case where the Magistrate entertains a
reasonable belief on the materials that the accused has not been guilty of such an
some materials at the stage of initial arrest, for the accusation or for strong
“The Code is cryptic on this topic and the Court prefers to be tacit, be the order
custodial or not. And yet, the issue is one of liberty, justice, public safety and
burden on the public treasury, all of which insist that a developed jurisprudence of
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discretion. Personal liberty, deprived when bail is refused, is too precious a value
of our constitutional system recognized under Article 21 that the curial power to
negate it is a great trust exercisable, not casually but judicially, with lively
concern for the cost to the individual and the community. To glamorise
established by law. The last four words of Article 21 are the life of that human
right. …”
In Moti Ram v. State of M.P., this Court, while discussing pre-trial detention, held: “The
consequences of pre-trial detention are grave. Defendants presumed innocent arc subjected
to the psychological and physical deprivations of jail life, usually under more onerous
conditions than are imposed on convicted defendants. The jailed defendant loses his job if he
has one and is prevented from contributing to the preparation of his defence. Equally
important, the burden of his detention frequently falls heavily on the innocent members of his
family.”
The concept and philosophy of bail was discussed by this Court in Vaman Narain Ghiya v.
“Bail remains an undefined term in CrPC. Nowhere else has the term been
of bail has found a place within the scope of human rights. Bail may thus be
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regarded as a mechanism whereby the State devolutes upon the community the
function of securing the presence of the prisoners, and at the same time involves
The law of bail, similar to other branches of law, has its own philosophy, and plays an
important role in the administration of justice. The concept of bail originates from the conflict
between the police power to restrict freedom of the accused and presumption of innocence of
the accused until proven guilty. An accused is not detained in custody with the object of
More recently, in the case of Siddharam Satlingappa Mhetre v. State of Maharashtra, this
Court observed that society’s interest of maintenance of law and order is as important as
freedom is to a citizen. This Court further observed: “Personal liberty is a very precious
fundamental right and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative according to
the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case.” This Court has taken the view that when
It is well settled that the matters to be considered in an application for bail are
(i) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the
accused had committed the offence; (ii) nature and gravity of the charge; (iii)
severity of the punishment in the event of conviction; (iv) danger of the accused
position and standing of the accused; (vi) likelihood of the offence being
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Moreover, while a vague allegation that the accused may tamper with the evidence or
witnesses may not be a ground to refuse bail, if the accused is of such character that his mere
presence at large would intimidate the witnesses or if there is material to show that he will
use his liberty to subvert justice or tamper with the evidence, then bail will be refused.
It is further submitted that the grant or refusal to grant bail lies within the discretion of the
Court. The grant or denial is regulated, to a large extent, by the facts and circumstances of
each particular case. But at the same time, right to bail is not to be denied merely because of
The primary purposes of bail in a criminal case are to relieve the accused of imprisonment, to
relieve the State of the burden of keeping him, pending the trial, and at the same time, to keep
the accused constructively in the custody of the Court, whether before or after conviction, to
assure that he will submit to the jurisdiction of the Court and be in attendance thereon
whenever his presence is required. This Court in Gurcharan Singh v. State observed, “ two
paramount considerations, while considering petition for grant of bail in non-bailable offence,
apart from the seriousness of the offence, are the likelihood of the accused fleeing from
justice and his tampering with the prosecution witnesses. Both of them relate to ensure of the
fair trial of the case”. Though, this aspect is dealt by the High Court in its impugned order, in
This Court, in the case of State of Kerala Vs. Raneef has stated: In deciding bail applications
an important factor which should certainly be taken into consideration by the court is the
delay in concluding the trial. Often this takes several years, and if the accused is denied bail
but is ultimately acquitted, who will restore so many years of his life spent in custody? Is
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Article 21 of the Constitution, which is the most basic of all the fundamental rights in our
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APPRECIATION OF EVIDENCE IN A CRIMINAL CASE
One of the finest and foremost tests in a criminal case, to consider credibility and reliability
of the prosecution version both oral and documentary, is appreciation of evidence. The
From settling the law in motion in a criminal case by preferring FIR to filing of a final report
by the police after investigation and ultimately resulting in admissibility and reliability of
various kinds of evidences before the court, appreciation of evidences is the heart and soul of
Criminal cases involves life and death problem of a citizen and the destiny of the citizen is to
be decided by carefully analyzing and scrutinizing the evidence adduced by the prosecution.
The Hon'ble Apex Court in Rang Bahadur Singh v. State of U.P. has held as follows :
lifelong liberty, without having at least a reasonable level of certainty that the
In yet another decision in State of U.P. V. Ram Veer Singh, the Hon'ble Apex Court has held
as follows:
justice in criminal cases is that if two view are possible on the evidence
adduced in the case, one pointing to the guilt of the accused and the other
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to his innocence, the view which is favourable to the accused should be
arise from acquittal of the guilty is no less than from the conviction of an
upon the appellate Court to re-appreciate the evidence where the accused
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RELEVANCE OF STATEMENTS RECORDED UNDER SECTIONs 161 and 164 OF
It was held in Baldev Singh vs. State of Punjab, “statement recorded under S.161 Cr.P.C.
shall not be used for any purpose except to contradict a witness in the manner prescribed in
the proviso to Section 162 (1)” ; further held that the First Information Report is not a
In Rajendra Singh vs. State of U.P., the Hon’ble Apex Court has held that:
view of the provision to Section 162 (1) CrPC, the said statement can be used only
for the limited purpose of contradicting the maker thereof in the manner laid
down in the said proviso. Therefore, the High Court committed a manifest error
Respondent 2 could not have been present at the scene of commission of the
crime.”
It can be used for corroboration or contradiction. In Sunil Kumar vs. State of M.P., the
“This conclusion of ours, however, does not in any way affect the merits of the
prosecution case for we find that immediately after PW 1 was taken to the
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hospital his statement was recorded as a dying declaration which, consequent
“33. The objective behind recording of statement of a witness under Section 164
direction, it is going against a right person and, a belief that it will instill a
sense of feeling in the mind of the deponent that later he should not resile from
it. A feeling that he has been tied down to his such earlier statement.
34. In practice, resort being made to Section 164 Cr.P.C. by the Investigating
Officers mainly when the case is in the investigation stage. Section 164 Cr.P.C.
from the accused. The statement of witness has to be recorded like a statement
recorded from a witness in the court. Before recording the statement, oath has
recording of confession from the accused. Only before and after recording a
to the accused has been prescribed. This rigorous exercise need not be followed
can orally examine any person acquainted with the facts of the case. When he
reduces the true account of it, then it becomes a statement under Section 161
Cr.P.C. and gist of it must find a place in his Case Diary (C.D.) (See Section
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Officer during investigation stage. It cannot be used as 'substantive evidence' as
against the accused. There is total embargo in Section 162 Cr.P.C. for such
usage with an exception in Section 162(2) Cr.P.C., that is, when the author of
the statement dies it becomes his dying declaration under Section 32(1) of the
Evidence Act. The section 161 statement can be used by the accused to
contradict and impeach the credibility of the witness by the accused. It can be
against him. (See Sections 145, 155, 157 of Indian Evidence Act).”
Therefore, it can be stated that the police may record contradictory statement even in case of
a truthful witness who must have said the same thing to the police and in the court. Hence,
this statement in the case diary often turns out to be helpful in acquittal of the accused if the
issue is not handled by the court, carefully. This is evident from observation of various recent
Regarding ‘confession’ in S. 164 CrPC, in Sahib Singh vs. State of Haryana, the Hon’ble
treated as relevant against the person making the confession unless it appears to
the Court that it is rendered irrelevant on account of any of the factors, namely,
attracts the frown of Section 24 has to be considered from the point of view of the
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43. Section 25 which provides that a Confession made to a Police Officer shall
not be proved against the person accused of an offence, places complete ban on
a Police Officer shall not be proved against him unless it is made in the
24, 25 and 26. Section 164, 281 463 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are the
recorded.”
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CONCLUSION/ RELATING SECTIONs 161 and 164 WITH RELEASE OF A
PERSON
It can be submitted that confessions of various accused persons under Section 164 of the
The first precaution that a Judicial Magistrate is required to take is to prevent forcible
extraction of confession by the prosecuting agency. It was also held by this Court in the case
of Shivappa v. State of Karnataka that the provisions of Section 164 Code of Criminal
Procedure must be complied with not only in form, but in essence. Before proceeding to
record the confessional statement, a searching enquiry must be made from the accused as to
the custody from which he was produced and the treatment he had been receiving in such
custody in order to ensure that there is no scope for doubt of any sort of extraneous influence
accused coming from police custody or jail custody must appreciate his function
in that behalf as one of a judicial officer and he must apply his judicial mind to
ascertain and satisfy his conscience that the statement the accused makes is not
of Criminal Procedure and the rules framed by the High Court for the guidance
of the subordinate courts. Moreover, the Magistrate must not only be satisfied
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as to the voluntary character of the statement, he should also make and leave
such material on the record in proof of the compliance with the imperative
requirements of the statutory provisions, as would satisfy the court that sits in
judgment in the case, that the confessional statement was made by the accused
Court is relevant:
“It is also true that before a confessional statement made under Section 164 of
voluntary and free from police influence and that the confessional statement
made by the Appellant in the instant case cannot be taken into account, as it
show that the Appellant was actually kept in jail as ordered on September 6,
1974 by Shri R.P. Singh, Judicial Magistrate, Gorakhpur, (2) Shri R.P. Singh
who recorded the so called confessional statement of the Appellant did not
question him as to why he was making the confession and (3) there is also
nothing in the statement of the said Magistrate to show that he told the Appellant
that he would not be remanded to the police lock-up even if he did not confess his
guilt. It cannot also be gainsaid that the circumstantial evidence relied upon by
“...In dealing with a criminal case where the prosecution relies upon the
confession of one accused person against another accused person, the proper
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approach to adopt is to consider the other evidence against such an accused
person, and if the said evidence appears to be satisfactory and the court is
inclined to hold that the said evidence may sustain the charge framed against the
said accused person, the court turns to the confession with a view to assure itself
that the conclusion which it is inclined to draw from the other evidence is right.”
Therefore, it can be stated that in law it is always open to the court to convict an accused on
his confession itself though he has retracted it at a later stage. Nevertheless usually courts
require some corroboration to the confessional statement before convicting an accused person
on such a statement. What amount of corroboration would be necessary in such a case would
always be a question of fact to be determined in the light of the circumstances of each case.
Procedure.:
must be made from the accused as to the custody from which he was produced
and the treatment he had been receiving in such custody in order to ensure that
there is no scope for doubt of any sort of extraneous influence proceeding from a
(iii) A Magistrate should ask the accused as to why he wants to make a statement
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(v) He should be assured of protection from any sort of apprehended torture or
(vi) A judicial confession not given voluntarily is unreliable, more so, when such
judicial confession.
(viii) During the time of reflection, the accused should be completely out of police
influence. The judicial officer, who is entrusted with the duty of recording
confession, must apply his judicial mind to ascertain and satisfy his conscience
that the statement of the accused is not on account of any extraneous influence on
him.
(ix) At the time of recording the statement of the accused, no police or police
(xi) Usually the Court requires some corroboration from the confessional
“Although the statement of a witness recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C. during
161 Cr.P.C., but, it has some higher value than the statement recorded under
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In T. Diwakara v. State of Karnataka, during investigation, P.W. 10 gave statement before a
Magistrate under Section 164 Cr.P.C., but, later during the Sessions trial, he turned hostile. In
“The statement of PW 10 was recorded before the Magistrate. After the lodging of
the complaint, PW 10 has turned hostile. But the trial court convicted the accused
Procedure Code. The trial court grossly erred in placing reliance on the
substantive evidence. While convicting the accused the statement recorded under
Section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code does not have any better legal status
than the one recorded under Section 161(3) of Criminal Procedure Code. At the
Procedure Code turns hostile, he/she could be prosecuted for perjury but on the
Therefore, when a witness gave statement to the Magistrate under Section 164 Cr.P.C., later
during the trial before the learned Sessions Judge disowned it, gave different version, either
the statement given by him before the learned Magistrate may be true or his deposition before
the learned Sessions Judge may be true, but both may not be true.
in State of U.P. V. Ram Veer Singh, the Hon'ble Apex Court held as follows:
"The golden thread which runs through the web of administration of justice in
criminal cases is that if two view are possible on the evidence adduced in the
case, one pointing to the guilt of the accused and the other to his innocence,
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paramount consideration of the Court is to ensure that miscarriage of justice
admissible evidence is ignored, a duty is cast upon the appellate Court to re-
appreciate the evidence where the accused has been acquitted, for the purpose
or not."
The grant or refusal to grant bail lies within the discretion of the Court. The grant or denial is
regulated, to a large extent, by the facts and circumstances of each particular case. But at the
same time, right to bail is not to be denied merely because of the sentiments of the
At present times, when boy and girl eloped from their homes, and girl’s parents register
complaints against the boy for kidnapping of the girl, confession of girl or contradictory
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REFERENCES-
Books:
Legal Databases:
Manupatra Online
Statutes:
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