38. Procedural rights are not based on sentimental concerns for the detenu. The procedural safeguards are not devised to coddle criminals or provide technical loopholes through which dangerous persons escape the consequences of their acts. They are basically society's assurances that the authorities will behave properly within rules distilled from long centuries of concrete experiences.
16. The importance of a lawyer to enable a person to properly defend himself has been elaborately explained by this Court in A.S. Mohammed Rafi v. State of T.N.[(2011) 1 SCC 688 : (2011) 1 SCC (Cri) 509 : AIR 2011 SC 308] and in Mohd. Sukur Ali v. State of Assam [(2011) 4 SCC 729 : JT (2011) 2 SC 527] . As observed by Mr Justice Sutherland of the US Supreme Court in Powell v. Alabama [77 L Ed 158 : 287 US 45 (1932)] (US p. 69), "[e]ven the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law", and hence, without a lawyer he may be convicted though he is innocent.
