Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973

In this 1990 ruling the Supreme Court held that officers of the Department of Revenue Intelligence invested with police-station powers under Section 53 of the NDPS Act are not "police officers" under Section 25 of the Evidence Act, so confessions made to them are not barred (paras 1, 21-22). The decisive test was the power to file a police report under Section 173 of the Code (para 21). The ruling was later overruled by a majority of the Supreme Court in Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu (2020).

The Supreme Court acquitted a bus driver convicted under Section 304A IPC after a four-year-old girl ran across the road and was killed (paras 1-2, 39). Res ipsa loquitur cannot be used in a criminal trial to shift the burden of proving negligence onto the accused (para 28), though it may aid permissive inferences under Section 114 of the Evidence Act, subject to the rules governing circumstantial evidence (paras 29-30).

Acting on a habeas corpus petition about undertrials held in Bihar’s jails for years without trial, the Supreme Court held that speedy trial, meaning "reasonably expeditious trial", is "an integral and essential part of the fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in Article 21" (para 5). It criticised the property-oriented bail system and said courts should release an accused with roots in the community on personal bond, fixing its amount individually rather than by the charge (paras 3-4).

The Supreme Court set out four principles for discharge under Section 227 CrPC: the judge may sift and weigh the evidence to see whether a prima facie case exists; grave, unexplained suspicion justifies a charge; where two views are equally possible and the suspicion is not grave, the accused may be discharged; and the judge cannot act as a "mouth-piece of the prosecution" (para 10). It upheld the discharge of two officers accused of a land-compensation conspiracy (paras 25-26).

The Supreme Court held that "The prohibitive sweep of Art. 20(3) goes back to the stage of police interrogation", not only to the trial (para 58). An accused may refuse answers that tend to incriminate him in the case or in other pending or imminent accusations, and pressure, mental or physical, makes testimony compelled (paras 58, 60). Section 179 IPC needs mens rea (para 61). The prosecution of a former Chief Minister of Orissa for refusing police questions was quashed (para 73).

The Supreme Court upheld the Delhi High Court's cancellation of bail that a Sessions Judge had granted to police officers, from a Deputy Inspector General down to constables, accused of conspiring to murder a man in police custody (paras 1-5, 27). Under Section 439(2) of the 1973 Code the High Court may commit to custody a person released on bail by any court, including the Court of Session (para 12), and the Sessions Judge had not given proper weight to the apprehension of witness tampering (para 23).