RAJA RAM Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE following question has come up before this Full Bench on a reference by Verma and Gupta, JJ. "Whether a confession recorded by a Magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure after the police had completed its investigation and submitted a charge-sheet, but before the Magisterial enquiry has commenced, is inadmissible in evidence."

(2.) THE reference was necessitated as in the view of those learned Judges the decision in Ram Singh v. State, 1958 All LJ 660: (AIR 1959 All 518), and the cases on which it was based, required reconsideration.

(3.) A bare reading of the aforesaid subsection shows that it invests every Magistrate of the first class with the power to record any confession made to him in the course of an investigation under that Chapter or at any time afterwards but before the commencement of the inquiry or trial. The words 'at any time afterwards clearly show that if the confession was not made in the course of investigation then it can be made any time afterwards but before the commencement of the inquiry or trial. Thus, according to this sub-section the latest point of time upto which a confession can be recorded is the 'commencement of the inquiry' or 'the trial' as the case may be. To hold that this power comes to an end as soon as the investigation is completed and a charge-sheet submitted is to make the expression 'or at any time afterwards before the commencement of the inquiry or trial' otiose. It is a well-established rule of construction, that every word in a Statute must be given its ordinary meaning, unless, the doing so, would result in some anomaly, repugnancy, or conflict with the other provisions, or the avowed object, of that Statute. As the interpretation put by me on this sub-section does not have any of the aforesaid effects, I am not prepared to put a construction on it which would have the effect of rendering an entire (sic) used therein as superfluous and meaningless.