§ Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked whether, in view of the admitted evils which continue to result from the practice by the Indian police of extorting confessions from untried prisoners, the Secretary of State has ever considered the desirability of so amending the Code of Criminal Procedure as to provide that no confessions shall be admissible in evidence except those made to the court by which the prisoner is tried; and whether the Under-Secretary is aware that, according to the latest Report of the Inspector-General of Police in the United Provinces, local magistrates have in certain districts already been stopped from recording confessions to the police, with the full approval of the magistrate of Meerut as well as the Inspector-General?
§ Mr. MONTAGUMy bon. Friend probably refers to the proposal, put forward by the Police Commission, that the Code of Criminal Procedure should be amended so as to provide that confessions should be recorded only by the magistrate having jurisdiction in the case. In dealing with the Report of the Commission Lord Curzon's Government proposed that the power to record confessions should be restricted to magistrates having jurisdiction to try the case and to magistrates of the first or second class. This proposal was accepted by the Secretary of State, and effect will be given to it in the comprehensive revision of the Criminal Procedure Code which is now under the consideration of the Government of India. Confessions to the police are already inadmissible as evidence against the accused under Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872. It is a fact that in the Meerut district local magistrates have been ordered not to record confessions.