JUDGMENT :

C.T. RAVIKUMAR, J.

1. Births of crimes and culprits concerned, occur together. Yet, under the criminal justice delivery system only on concluding findings on commission of the crime concerned in the affirmative, the question whether the accused is its culprit would arise. Culpability can be fixed, if at all it is to be fixed, on the accused upon conclusive proof of the same established by the prosecution only after following various procedural safeguards recognizing certain rights of an accused. Failure to comply with such mandatory procedures may even vitiate the very trial, subject to the satisfaction of conditions, therefor. Foremost among one such right is embedded in Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short the ‘Cr.PC’). Though questioning under clause (a) of sub-Section (1) of Section 313, Cr.PC, is discretionary, the questioning under clause (b) thereof is mandatory. Needless to say, a fatal non-compliance in the matter of questioning under Clause (b) of sub-section (1) thereof, in case resulted in material prejudice to any convict in a criminal case the trial concerned, qua that convict should stand vitiated. This prelude becomes necessary as