Medical Jurisprudence And Toxicology

762 MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE

Sec 164. Power to record statements and confessions.—(1) Any Presidency Magis-
trate any Magistrate of the first class and any Magistrate of the second class specially
empowered in this behalf by the State Government may, if he is not a police-officer,
record any statement or confession made to him in the course of an investigation tinder
this Chapter or tinder any other law for the time being in force or at any time after-
wards before the commencement of the inquiry or trial.

(2) Such statements shall be recorded in such of the manners hereinafter pre-
scribed for recording evidence as is, in his opinion, best fitted for the circumstances of
the case. Such confessions shall be recorded and signed in the manner provided in
section 364 and such statements or confessions shall then be forwarded to the Magistrate
by whom the case is to be inquired into or tried.

(3) A Magistrate shall, before recording any such confession, explain to the person
making it that he is not bound to make a confession and that if he does so it may be
used as evidence against him and no Magistrate shall record any such confession unless,
upon questioning the person making it, if he has reason to believe that it was not made
voluntarily; and when he records any confession, he shall make a memorandum at the
foot of such record to the following effect: —

"I have explained to (name) that, he is not bound to make a confession and that
if he does so, any confession he may make, may be used as evidence against him and I
believe that this confession was voluntarily made. It was taken in my presence and
hearing, and was read over to the person making it and admitted by him to be correct,
and it contains a full and true account of the statement made by him.

(Signed) A.B.

Magistrate."

Explanation.-—It is not necessary that the Magistrate receiving and recording a con-
fession or statement should be a Magistrate having jurisdiction in the case.

Sec. 174. Police to inquire and report on suicide, etc.—(1) The officer in charge
of a police-station, or some other police-officer,3 specially empowered by the State
Government in that behalf, on receiving information that a person—

(a) has committed suicide, or

(b) has been killed by another, or by an animal, or by machinery, or by an
accident, or

(c) has died under circumstances raising a reasonable suspicion that some other
person has committed an offence,

shall immediately give intimation thereof to the nearest Magistrate empowered to hold
inquests, and, unless otherwise directed by any rule prescribed by the State Government,
or by any general or special order of the District or Sub-divisional Magistrate, shall
proceed to the place where the body of such deceased person is, and there in the presence
of two or more respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood, shall make an investigation
and draw up a report of the apparent cause of death, describing such wounds, fractures,
bruises and other marks of injury as may be found on the body and stating in what
manner, or by what weapon or instrument (if any), such marks appear to have been
inflicted.

(2) The report shall be signed by such police-officer and other persons, or by so
many of them, as concur therein, and shall be forthwith forwarded to the District Magis-
trate or the Sub-divisional Magistrate.

(3) When there is any doubt regarding the cause of death, or when for any other
reason the police-officer considers it expedient so to do, he shall, subject to such rules
as the State Government may prescribe in this behalf, forward the body, with a view
to its being examined, to the nearest Civil Surgeon, or other qualified medical man
appointed in this behalf by the State Government, if the state of the weather and the
distance admit of its being so forwarded without risk of such putrefaction on the road
as would render such examination useless.

(4) In the Presidencies of Fort St. George and Bombay, investigation under this
section may be made by the head of the village, who shall then report the result to the
nearest Magistrate authorized to hold inquests.

• ® The foUowin£ Magistrates are empowered to hold inquests, namely, any Dis-
trict Magistrate, Sub-divisional Magistrate, or Magistrate of the First Class and any
Magistrate specially empowered in this behalf by the State Government or the District
Magistrate.

_ Scope.—When the body cannot be found or has been buried, there can be no investi-
gation under section 174. This section is intended to apply to cases in which an inquest
^necessary, which presupposes that the corpse must be available.—Gul Hasan, 1908,
iP.lv. 27, 9 Cr. L.J., 105.

3. Head Constables specially selected by the Superintendent of Police are empowered
Hard? I^m7emment to msike taquiries (vide U'P- Govt- No- 75> VI> 103-1906 dated