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tests which helps the investigating officer unravel the mystery. The Court also stated “He [the accused] may be taken to the laboratory for such tests against his will, but the revelation during such tests is quite voluntary. Therefore, such process does not amount to compelling a witness to give evidence as against him.” It is submitted that the argument in the aforementioned of High Court is fallacious with regard to the volitional control exercised by the victim during such tests. The moot point of any argument against such tests is the loss of volitional control of the accused when being subjected to the tests. Nonetheless, the judicial pronouncement speaks of the progressiveness and the ‘activist magnitude’ of our judiciary.

It was in Ramchandra Ram Reddy v. State of Maharashtra [45] , that the constitutionality of the three tests was examined in great detail. The petitioner contended that all three tests involve are invasive in nature. It was further contended that these tests if compelled would amount to compulsion of making a statement. Preliminarily, the Court construed the meanings of the words ‘statement’ and ‘testimony’ with extrinsic aids such as law lexicon and other dictionaries. The court then affirmed the constitutionality of Polygraph and Brain Mapping in light of these conclusions [46] :

The test does not provide any means to know what that knowledge is

The court observed that the end result of brain mapping tests, is a map showing re-actions of the brain to certain words and the conclusion that can be drawn by an expert after such treatment is whether the subject undergoing the tests possesses certain knowledge of the crime or not. It further averred that the only inference that could be drawn from the tests was whether he answered the question in a deceptive manner or not and that he still retains possession of the knowledge about which the subject was questioned.

In both these tests there is no way to find out what the lie is or what is the information stored in the brain of the person concerned. [47]

The Court reasoned that

“It cannot be by any strech of imagination that the end result is the statement made by the witness. At the most it can be called the information received or taken out from the witness. Whatever is the information it has to be established that it is incriminating the person who makes it for invoking the protection under Article 20(3). In our opinion therefore there is no reason why these two tests be not administered.”

It stated that the end result of the two tests did not bring forth any ‘statement’ from the accused but merely the fact that whether he was (i) deceptive (ii) in possession of any knowledge related to the crime. It averred that the above could not be accepted as 'statement’ as laid down by the Supreme Court in various cases.

Conclusion

“It is time that we recognize that right to silence is not really a right but a privilege…”

Justice Malimath Committee report portrays beautifully the common man’s common sense approach to the doctrine of Right to Silence in the following extract:

“It is normal for a child who has stolen a cookie to be questioned by his parent on its disappearance. It would be absurd if the child’s defence is that he may not be questioned and in any event cannot be expected to reply as this might incri本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。