99. Verification of Confessions. (Section 3, Bengal Act II of 1866.) (Section 9, Bengal Act IV of 1866.). - (a) When an accused or a suspected person volunteers a confession it shall be recorded in detail by a police officer who, if it appears to be true, shall take immediate steps for its verification. Such verification shall be made with a view +o discover evidence corroborative of the facts disclosed in the confession such as the tracing and examination of witnesses and the recovery of stolen property. If the confession relates to more than one case the verifying officer shall submit special diaries in each of the cases.
(b)Anything which savours of oppression or trickery in obtaining a confession must be avoided. The aim of a police officer shall be to obtain circumstantial and oral evidence so convincing that the accused person may not escape. If he succeeds in obtaining such evidence, the confession will often follow and will materially strengthen the case, but to seek to obtain the confession first and the corroborative evidence afterwards is to reverse the proper order of proceedings. If, however, a confession is volunteered in an enquiry, every effort must be made to ascertain if there is evidence corroborative of any point in the confession which can be verified. A statement purporting to be a confession will often be made in order to mislead the inquiring officer, and such statements are very rarely true in all particulars, and also are frequently made in order to throw blame on other persons, or with a view to stopping further inquiry. Also they are generally retracted in Court in which case, if they stand alone and uncorroborated, they have little or no probative value. There is thus every reason for testing so called confessions very carefully and not accepting them as final and conclusive and stopping the enquiry.(c)The officer recording the confession shall immediately send the confession person to the Chief Presidency Magistrate or the appropriate Magistrate at Sealdah or Alipore, as the case may be, in order that the confession may be judicially recorded.
