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Issues: (i) Whether an officer of the Railway Protection Force conducting an inquiry under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966 is a police officer so that statements recorded by him are inadmissible under Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898; and (ii) whether a person arrested and examined in such inquiry is a person accused of an offence for the purpose of Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India.
Issue (i): Whether an officer of the Railway Protection Force conducting an inquiry under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966 is a police officer so that statements recorded by him are inadmissible under Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898.
Analysis: The statutory scheme of the 1966 Act differs materially from a police investigation under the Code. Offences under the Act are non-cognizable, prosecution is by complaint, and the officer conducting the inquiry has no power to submit a police report or charge-sheet under Section 173 of the Code. Although the officer is given certain powers analogous to those of an officer in charge of a police station, those powers are confined to the limited inquiry under the Act and do not carry the essential attribute of a police investigation. Applying the settled test that the decisive factor is whether the officer can exercise all the powers of a police officer in relation to investigation, including the power to initiate prosecution by report under Section 173, the officer of the Railway Protection Force does not fall within the expression "police officer" for Section 25 or Section 162.
Conclusion: The officer is not a police officer within the meaning of Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the recorded statements are not excluded on that ground.
Issue (ii): Whether a person arrested and examined in such inquiry is a person accused of an offence for the purpose of Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India.
Analysis: Protection under Article 20(3) is available only when a formal accusation of an offence has already been made against the person. At the time the incriminating statements were recorded, no formal complaint, first information report, or equivalent accusation had been made against the appellant. The appellant therefore had not yet acquired the status of a person accused of an offence within the constitutional meaning of Article 20(3). In that situation, the constitutional bar against compelled self-incrimination was not attracted.
Conclusion: Article 20(3) did not apply to the statements recorded during the inquiry.
Final Conclusion: The challenge to admissibility and constitutional invalidity failed, and the appeals were liable to be dismissed with the prosecution permitted to proceed on the footing indicated by the Court.
Ratio Decidendi: For Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, an officer under a special statute is a police officer only if he is vested with all the powers of an officer in charge of a police station in relation to investigation, including the power to submit a report under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898; and Article 20(3) is attracted only after a formal accusation has been made.
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