The practice of omnibus marking of Section 164 statement of witness deserves to be deprecated. The relevant portion of such prior statements of living persons used for contradiction or corroboration Under Section 145/157 of the Evidence Act deserves to be marked separately and specifically.
The practice of whole sale marking of confession statement of Accused persons for introduction of the relevant statement admissible Under Section 27 of Evidence Act deserves to be deprecated. Ideally the admissible portion and that portion alone, must be extracted in the recovery memos (Mahazar or Panch-different nomenclature used in different parts of the land) within inverted commas. Otherwise the relevant portion alone written separately must be proved by the Investigating Officer. Back door access to inadmissible evidence by marking the entire confession statement in the attempt to prove the admissible portion Under Section 27 of Evidence Act should be strictly avoided.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Suo Motu Writ (Crl.) No. 1 of 2017
Decided On: 30.03.2017
In Re: To Issue Certain Guidelines Regarding Inadequacies and Deficiencies in Criminal Trials
Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao, JJ.
Citation: 2017 ALLMR(CRI)1747 SC
