- What is it?: Protection in Respect of Conviction for Offences
- Article 20: Grants protection against arbitrary and excessive punishment to an accused person, whether citizen or foreigner or legal person like a company or a corporation.
- Three Provision
- No ex-post-facto law: No person shall be
- Convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the act.
- Subjected to a penalty greater than that prescribed by the law in force at the time of the commission of the act.
- Applicable in criminal laws not in civil laws.
- Not applicable during preventive detention.
- No double jeopardy: No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once.
- The protection against double jeopardy is available only in proceedings before a court of law or a judicial tribunal.
- No self-incrimination: No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
- The protection against self-incrimination extends to both oral evidence and documentary evidence.
- Not extended to
- Compulsory production of material objects.
- Compulsion to give thumb impression, specimen signature, blood specimens.
- Compulsory exhibition of the body.
- No ex-post-facto law: No person shall be