Group 3: The Conundrum of Admissibility of Illegally Procured Evidence

Group 3: A.Agarwal, A. Roy, B. Pamidighantam, C. Bhardwaj, N.Halakhandi, S. Prem

In what the critics claim to be landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of India in August 2017, established the Right to Privacy as a fundamental right. In retrospection, however, one cause for concern remains the fact that the Courts in India continue to admit illegally obtained evidence i.e. those which don’t conform to the procedure of procuring evidence as elucidated in the Criminal Procedure Code and The Indian Evidence Act.

Therefore, evidence acquired illegally by breach of the right to privacy such as ‘phone tapping’ as established in S. Pratap Singh v. State of Punjab[1], or hacking of personal e-mails or servers, would be deemed as admissible, despite being violative of the fundamental right to privacy. The test is to determine the admissibility of the evidence is relevancy[2].

Granted that the right in no means is absolute and can be circumvented via due court processes and warrants, the issue that we are trying to determine is the admissibility of illegally procured information. Despite establishing the procedure for obtaining evidence, the courts admit evidence obtained in breach of these rules. Therefore, evidence highly pertinent to the case would be admissible even though obtained through illegal means including the breach of the Right to Privacy of a citizen.

In “Constitution of Free India”, M.N. Roy talks about how the protection of privacy of a citizen is extended beyond the home of a citizen and even to correspondences. The fact that in India, the police doesn’t need a warrant to search and seizure for evidence shows how the right is neglected. We rest our case.

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[1] S. Pratap Singh v. State of Punjab 1964 AIR 72

[2] Kuruma v. Respondent 9 (1955)