The bench made the following observation on the right provided under Article 20 (3):
“Analysing the terms in which this right has been declared in our Constitution, it may be said to consist of the following components. (1) It is a right pertaining to a person ‘accused of an offence’; (2) It is a protection against ‘compulsion to be a witness’; and (3) It is a protection against such compulsion resulting in his giving evidence ‘against himself’.”
On what is to be a witness, the court made it clear that oral deposition alone is not the end of the definition. The bench said: A person can “be a witness” not merely by giving oral evidence but also by producing documents or making intelligible gestures as in the case of a dumb witness (see Section 119 of the Evidence Act) or the like.