Voluntary Statements?

By Vijay Kumar

Why should any sane person give a voluntary statement to the Customs admitting his guilt? But you peruse any statement given before any customs officer and you will find the mandatory para at the end. “I have given this statement out of my own free will without any threat or coercion”. How is this uniform wording of the statement happening with all the accused persons? And how does a hard core smuggler suddenly become a repenting saint and confess before the Customs voluntarily?

Third degree is the trick. There is a fourth degree too. If any offender has the audacity to retract a statement within a reasonable time, he is summoned back and given a fresh coating and he gives a statement that his retraction was purely an evil act and that he stands by his first statement. Unfortunately the courts accept these statements. The logical fact that nobody (more so a confirmed tax evader) will voluntarily confess that he is guilty, is somehow ignored. The officers should remember that even those who they think are smugglers have rights and nobody has the right to assault another human being to obtain a voluntary statement.

Today we are carrying a judgement of the Supreme Court of India in which a person had to languish in jail illegally because of such a voluntary statement. A person flies into Chennai with a TV. When the officers intercept him they find that the picture tube is filled with cell phones. The passenger gives a voluntary statement that he is guilty and is promptly thrown into jail. Later he writes to the Air Customs that his statement was obtained by torture and he was carrying the TV for somebody and he did not know about the cell phones. May be true, may be false. But the Customs keeps his retraction a secret and does not inform the DRI which recommends his detention under COFEPOSA. He has to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get his detention quashed – after two years! The Supreme Court declares his detention was illegal. The man was in jail because the Customs did not inform the proper authority that he had retracted his statement. This is no support to a smuggler – punish all the smugglers – if you can – but after a due process of law. The highest court of the land declares that his detention was illegal but what is the use if he had to spend a couple of years in jail before his detention is quashed? Should the process of law be harsher than the ultimate punishment?

When you beat up somebody or send some one to jail unfairly, just remember how you would feel if the person was your son/brother/father or even your own exalted self?

“It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,” cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Return of Sherlock Holmes - 1904