Which one of the following fundamental rights has not been provided to a person?
- (a)Protection against prosecution and punishment for the same offence more than once
- (b)To refuse to give his/her sample of handwriting as evidence to support a prosecution against him/her
- (c)To act as a witness against himself/herself
- (d)Right not to be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of commission of the act charged as an offence
Correct — B, To refuse to give his/her sample of handwriting as evidence to support a prosecution against him/her. Article 20(3) protects an accused only against being compelled to be a witness against himself, and in State of Bombay v. Kathi Kalu Oghad (1961) an eleven-judge bench read 'to be a witness' as giving testimony — a communication resting on the accused's personal knowledge. Specimen handwriting, signatures, thumb impressions and the exhibition of the body are identification material of a kind that carries no personal knowledge, so a court may require them and no right of refusal arises. The other three options each restate a protection the Constitution does confer.
- (a)Protection against prosecution and punishment for the same offence more than once — Article 20(2) grants exactly this — the protection against double jeopardy. It is narrower than its American cousin, since it needs both prosecution and punishment before a judicial or quasi-judicial authority, but it is unquestionably conferred.
- (c)To act as a witness against himself/herself — Read as the substance of Article 20(3), that no accused shall be compelled to be a witness against himself, this is a protection the Constitution does provide. The phrasing is loose, and that looseness is why the item is best settled on option (b), where the law leaves no room for argument.
- (d)Right not to be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of commission of the act charged as an offence — Article 20(1) states this rule against retrospective criminal law, and adds that no penalty greater than the one prescribed at the time may be imposed.
Article 20 packs three separate guarantees into one article — no retrospective criminal law, no double jeopardy, and no compelled self-incrimination. The third has been the most litigated, because its scope depends entirely on what counts as being a witness. The courts have drawn the line at testimony: what the accused knows is protected, what his body is is not.
The examiner has built the item so that three options paraphrase Article 20 accurately and one states a right the courts have expressly refused to recognise. Anyone who has met Kathi Kalu Oghad answers it in seconds. Anyone who has not may be tempted by option (c), whose wording is careless; the reliable discriminator remains the handwriting sample, since that specific claim has been tested and rejected.
- Article 20(3) protects a person accused of an offence against being compelled to be a witness against himself.
- State of Bombay v. Kathi Kalu Oghad (1961) held that specimen handwriting, signatures, thumb impressions and exhibition of the body are not testimonial compulsion.
- Section 311A of the Criminal Procedure Code, inserted in 2005, allowed a magistrate to order specimen signatures or handwriting; the same power now sits in section 349 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.
- Selvi v. State of Karnataka (2010) went the other way on narco-analysis, polygraph tests and brain mapping, holding that administering them without consent violates Article 20(3).
- Article 20 cannot be suspended even during a Proclamation of Emergency, by the terms of Article 359(1).
The dividing line is personal knowledge. What the accused knows is protected; what his body or his handwriting merely identifies is not.
- Assuming Article 20(3) covers every kind of evidence taken from an accused.
- Reading double jeopardy as barring a second trial after an acquittal by any authority; the Indian rule needs a prosecution and a punishment.
A negative-stem item that rewards one specific case-law holding rather than a general reading of the article.
Which one of the following Articles of the Constitution of India protects a person against double jeopardy?
- (a) Article 20
- (b) Article 21
- (c) Article 22
- (d) Article 23
Answer(a) Article 20
The same article approached from its second clause. Double jeopardy is option (a) of this item, and placing it in Article 20 is the step that tells a candidate where the self-incrimination rule lives too.
Which among the following fundamental rights is/are available to non-citizens? 1. Freedom of speech 2. Protection against self-incrimination 3. Freedom of conscience 4. Non-discrimination in matters of employment Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1, 2 and 3 only
- (b) 1, 3 and 4 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 2 only
Answer(c) 2 and 3 only
A reminder of how wide the same protection reaches. Article 20 speaks of a person rather than a citizen, which is why the self-incrimination guarantee is available to non-citizens as well.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of these may an accused person in India be compelled to provide without violating Article 20(3)?
- (a)A confession of guilt
- (b)A specimen thumb impression
- (c)Answers under narco-analysis without consent
- (d)A polygraph test without consent
Answer(b) A specimen thumb impression — it identifies, but conveys no personal knowledge, so Kathi Kalu Oghad places it outside the protection.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Protection against conviction under a retrospective criminal law is granted by
- (a)Article 20(1)
- (b)Article 20(2)
- (c)Article 20(3)
- (d)Article 21
Answer(a) Article 20(1) — it also forbids a penalty heavier than the one prescribed when the act was committed.