Pune (Maharashtra) [India], June 28 : In the Ketan Agarwal murder case, the counsel for accused Siya Goyal on Sunday said that any confession made while in custody cannot be treated as admissible evidence and asserted that the defence will raise the issue during proceedings, while questioning what prompted the investigating agency to change its stand from treating the case as an accidental death to pursuing it as a murder investigation.
Advocate Aashutosh Srivastava, appearing for Siya Goyal, referred to provisions under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) while addressing the issue of the alleged confession.
"I have said before that what was previously Section 25 of our Indian Evidence Act is now Section 23 in our new law, the BSA (Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam). It states very clearly that if any accused makes any kind of confession while in detention or police custody, where they are under pressure or under threat, then such confessions cannot be considered admissible evidence at all in any criminal law. We will certainly raise this issue as well," he told ANI.
He added that it would be for the prosecution to present any corroborative evidence during the course of the trial.
"Besides this, if the prosecution has any corroboratory evidence, they can produce it as the case progresses. As I mentioned earlier, the investigation is currently ongoing, and a charge sheet has not yet been filed, so we will have to see," Srivastava said.
Srivastava said the defence would focus on the allegations in the FIR, the investigation conducted so far and the circumstances under which the case took a different direction.
"Our arguments will focus on the allegations made in the registered FIR and the investigation conducted so far. We will also highlight the cooperation extended by our client, Siya, throughout the investigation. We will argue that the prosecution has already been granted sufficient time, specifically, ample police custodial remand to conduct any inquiries, interrogations, or information gathering required from Siya. We do not believe any further time is justified," he said.
He further said the defence would specifically seek an explanation for the change in the prosecution's approach.
"We will argue based on these grounds and present the facts surrounding the FIR: specifically, what prompted the prosecution or investigating agency to shift the perspective from an accidental death to a potential murder case. From the defence's standpoint, there is no concrete reason to pursue this as a murder trial. We will address all these aspects tomorrow and strive to secure judicial custody for our client so that the remaining legal proceedings can move forward," he added.
Earlier today, Pune Police took accused Siya Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary to Lohagad Fort near Pune to recreate the crime scene in the Ketan Agarwal murder case, using a dummy matching the victim's weight to reconstruct how the incident unfolded.
DSP Gajanan Tompe told ANI, "This morning, we brought Siya Goyal to the location, and the scene was reconstructed based on her account of the events. We created a dummy of the same weight as the victim, Ketan, for scene reconstruction."
Visuals from the spot showed police personnel walking the accused through the fort area as part of the reconstruction.