Self-incrimination privilege is personal: a company and its non-accused personnel cannot invoke Article 20(3) for testimonial protection.

Article 20(3) protects only natural persons capable of personal testimony and testimonial compulsion, so an incorporated company or other body corporate cannot claim the privilege against self-incrimination when accused of an offence. The Court held that a company, as a juristic person, cannot make oath or affirmation or give oral evidence through personal perception, and is not a witness merely because it is required to produce documents. The same protection also does not extend to directors, officers, or employees who are not arraigned as accused or co-accused, because the company remains a separate legal entity and its personnel cannot be treated as the company for this purpose.

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Issues: (i) Whether an incorporated company or other body corporate, when accused of an offence, can invoke the protection against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India. (ii) Whether that protection extends to the directors, officers, or employees of the company who are not arraigned as accused or co-accused.

Issue (i): Whether an incorporated company or other body corporate, when accused of an offence, can invoke the protection against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The protection under Article 20(3) is directed against compulsion of an accused person to give personal testimony against himself. A company, though a juristic person for many constitutional and statutory purposes, cannot make oath or affirmation, cannot give oral evidence through personal perception, and does not become a witness merely by being summoned to produce documents. The Court treated the connotation of "person" and "witness" in Article 20(3) as confined to natural persons capable of personal testimony, and declined to extend the privilege to corporate bodies. The contrary view in an earlier Bombay decision was not accepted as good law in light of the later larger-bench exposition of self-incrimination as requiring personal knowledge and testimonial compulsion.

Conclusion: A body corporate cannot invoke Article 20(3) as an accused person.

Issue (ii): Whether that protection extends to the directors, officers, or employees of the company who are not arraigned as accused or co-accused.

Analysis: The company is a separate legal entity distinct from its members, directors, officers, and employees. The Court rejected any attempt to identify the corporation with its personnel for the purpose of extending the privilege against self-incrimination. The evidence, if any, given by such persons is not self-incriminatory evidence of the company merely because they are connected with it, and the corporate veil cannot be lifted at the company's convenience to claim a privilege unavailable to the juristic person itself.

Conclusion: The protection under Article 20(3) does not extend to the company's directors, officers, or employees who are not accused or co-accused.

Final Conclusion: The revisional application failed and the rule was discharged, leaving the prosecution to proceed.

Ratio Decidendi: The privilege against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) is a personal constitutional protection confined to natural persons capable of giving personal testimony, and it does not extend to a body corporate or to its non-accused personnel merely by reason of their association with the company.

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