B. J. DIVAN, J. ( 1 ) IN the course of the investigation according to the prosecution in consequence of a statement made by accused No. 1 the gun Muddamal article 7 was discovered. Panch Motilal ( 2 ) MOHANLAL has proved the Panchnama and in the Panchnama it has been mentioned as follows :when the Panchas went to the Police Station Koli Jaga Mohan (accused No. 1) was present and accused No. 1 stated that he had concealed gun behind the bushes on the western Shedha (boundary) of his field named Khariwadi situated in the Sim of village Kunvarad and that he was willing to produce it if anybody accompanied him. Thereafter accused No. 1 is alleged to have taken the police party and Panchas in the jeep car to the out-skirts of Kunvarad and there he is alleged to have removed some branches and leaves and produced a gun. It has been brought out in the evidence of P. S. I. Patel that though accused No. 1 had been arrested on June 14 1961 it was not till June 18 that accused No. 1 made the statement that led to the discovery of the gun. It has been admitted by P. S. I. Patel that there was repeated and persistent questioning of accused No. 1 by the police between June 14 and June 18 and it was only on the morning of June 18 that accused No. 1 showed his willingness to point out the gun. In the cross-examination of P. S. I. Patel details were elicited and it appears that in all accused No. 1 had been questioned for 12 1/2 hours after his arrest before he showed his willingness to discover the gun. This period of 12 1/2 hours was spread out during the four days from June 14 to June 18. ( 3 ) IN view of these facts Mr. Barot argued before us basing his argument on the observations of Raju J in the case of Amrut Soma v. State of Bombay reported in A. I. R. 1960 Bombay 488. This judgment was delivered by Raju J. sitting singly at Nagpur. He there held that the statements made by the accused persons after long interrogation by the police and admitted under section 27 of the Evidence Act would be hit by Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution of India. This judgment was delivered by Raju J. sitting singly at Nagpur. He there held that the statements made by the accused persons after long interrogation by the police and admitted under section 27 of the Evidence Act would be hit by Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution of India. At page 489 Raju J has observed:moreover statements made by the accused person after long interrogation by the police and admitted under sec 27 Evidence Act would be hit by Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution of India. The contention appears to be that the statements made by the accused were made when they were questioned by the Police under sec. 161 Cr. P. C. If that be so the statement would be hit by Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution. ( 4 ) ARTICLE 20 (3) of the Constitution of India provides that no person accused of an offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. After this decision was pronounced by Raju J. the matter was considered by the Supreme Court in the case of the State of Bombay v. Kathi Kalu Oghad reported in A. I. R. 1961 S. C. 1808 and there it was decided by the majority out of 11 Judges who heard this matter that so far as section 27 of the Evidence Act was concerned there must have been compulsion on the person concerned to make Article 20 (3) applicable and it was also held that the mere questioning of the accused person by a police officer resulting in a voluntary statement which may ultimately turn out to be incriminatory is not compulsion. It was also held by the majority as shown at page 1816 in para 16 (1) as under :an accused person cannot be said to have been compelled to be a witness against himself simply because he made a statement while in police custody without anything more. In other words the mere fact of being in police custody at the time when the statement in question was made would not by itself as a proposition of law lend itself to the inference that the accused was compelled to make the statement though that fact in conjunction with other circumstances disclosed in evidence in a particular case would be relevant consideration in an enquiry whether or not the accused person had been compelled to make the impugned statement. ( 5 ) EVEN the view of the minority consisting of S. K. Das A. K. Sarkar and K. C. Das Gupta JJ. was that in order to make Article 20 (3) applicable there must be compulsion to give information and the minority held as shown at Page 1820 Para 36 that where the accused is compelled to give information it will be an infringement of Art. 20 (3); but there is no such infringement where he gives the information without any compulsion and that therefore compulsion not being inherit or implicit in the fact of the information having been received from a person in custody the contention that section 27 necessarily infringes Art. 20 (3) cannot be accepted. The majority view as we have pointed out above was that the mere questioning by a police officer of an accused when he is in police custody is not compulsion within the meaning of Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution of India. In view of this decision of the Supreme Court the view expressed by Raju J. in A. I. R. 1960 Bombay 488 must be deemed to have been over-ruled. ( 6 ) IN the particular case before us there was no contention that the statement made by accused No. 1 was as a result of an inducement threat or promise held out by the police officer or by any one else and there is no contention before us that apart from the questioning which was of a persistent nature there was any other element of compulsion so far as accused No. 1 was concerned. As the Supreme Court has pointed out mere questioning by a police officer cannot be compulsion within the meaning of Art. 20 (3) of the Constitution of India and hence in the light of the facts of this case the piece of evidence in the shape of the discovery of the gun by accused No. 1 cannot be ruled out. Appeal Partly Allowed. .