GODREJ SOAP LIMITED Vs. STATE OF W B

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Questions of considerable importance appear to be involved in this Revision. The first question is as to whether, when an incorporated company or any other body corporate is accused of any offence, it can invoke the provisions of Article 20(3) of the Constitution mandating that "no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself". And, secondly, even if it can do so, would such protection extend to its directors, officers or employees, who are not roped in as the accused or the co-accused?

(2.) In view of Article 367 of the Constitution, making the provisions of the General Clauses Act, 1897 applicable for the interpretation of the Constitution and the definition of the word "person" in section 3(42) of that Act, a company or other body corporate is to be ordinarily treated as a "person" for the purpose of the Constitution. There is no room for doubt that the word "person" in the former Article 31(1) and now in its successor Article 300A, applied and applies to a body corporate, which accordingly cannot be deprived of its property "save by the authority of law". Section 305(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure also, dealing with prosecutions against "Corporation" and defining "Corporation" to mean an incorporated company or other body corporate, has used the expression "where a corporation is the accused person". But as is usual with all definitions, and as is expressly provided both in Article 367(1) of the Constitution as well as section 3 of the General Clauses Act, the definition as in section 3(42) of the Act would apply to make the expression "person" to include a company, provided there is nothing in the subject or context to rule out its application. And we are inclined to hold that in view of the subject and in the context of a criminal prosecution, a company or other body corporate would not be a "person" within the meaning of the provisions of Article 20(3). It is not disputed that if that be our view, the Rule must be discharged. Here are our reasons.

(3.) Article 20(3) forbidding any compulsion to make the accused "a witness against himself" did not have much relevance when these provision were enacted in 1949, for under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, as it stood then before its amendment in 1955 by insertion of section 342A, an accused, far from being compelled to be a witness, was not and could not at all be a competent witness, even if he volunteered to become one. But the framers of the Constitution, may be because of their bitter experiences about the criminal proceedings during the pre-independence period and in tune with the then prevailing pro-accused Criminal Jurisprudence, probably wanted to put this matter on the higher pedestal of a Fundamental Right, so that the same could not be affected by any alteration by ordinary legislation.