Extra judicial confession being weak piece of evidence, it has to be examined with greater care and caution.

 Extra judicial confession, being weak piece of evidence, has to be looked for  independent reliable corroboration before placing reliance - SUPREME COURT

           

The present appeal, before a Bench of the Supreme Court of India, became the subject matter concerning the conviction of appellant by the High Court of Calcutta. The High Court of Calcutta had reversed the order of acquittal passed by the trial Court and convicted the appellant under Section 302 IPC and sentence to undergo life imprisonment merely on the basis of extra –judicial confession.

The learned counsel of appellant vehemently submitted that the High Court has grossly erred in reversing the well-reasoned judgment and acquittal passed by the trial court. The trial court has rightly disbelieved the testimonies of three prosecution witnesses.

Whereas on contrary, the learned counsel for State/respondent submitted that the High Court has rightly found that the extra-judicial confession made before the witnesses is trustworthy, reliable and cogent.

She further submitted that apart from the extra-judicial confession, the prosecution has also established the recovery of the blood-stained clothes and the weapon used by the appellant in commission of crime. The circumstance corroborates the testimony of witnesses.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court said, the present case rest entirely on circumstantial evidence. The law regarding conviction on the basis of circumstantial evidence is very well explained in the case of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda vs State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116. It was held that the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established and the circumstances concerned ‘must or should ‘ and not ‘may be’  established.

The case also explained the five golden principles to constitute the conditions before a case against an accused can be fully established.

1. The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established.

2. The fact so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say, they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except

3.  the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency,

4. they should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved, and

5. there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court has said that the extra-judicial confession is a weak piece of evidence. It has been held that where an extra-judicial confession is surrounded by the suspicious circumstances, its credibility becomes doubtful and it loses its importance.

The Court has also said that according to well settled principle that it is a rule of caution where the Court would generally look for an independent reliable corroboration before placing any reliance upon such extra-judicial confession.

An extra-judicial confession is admissible piece of evidence capable of forming the basis of conviction of an accused if the following principles are present, as observed in Sahadevan and Another vs. State of Tamil Nadu (2012) 6 SCC 403.

i.          the extra-judicial confession is a weak evidence by itself. It has to be examined by the Court with greater care and caution.

ii.         It should be made voluntarily and should be truthful.

(iii)      It should inspire confidence.

(iv)      An extra-judicial confession attains greater credibility and evidentiary value if it is supported by a chain of cogent circumstances and is further corroborated by other prosecution evidence.

(v)       For an extra-judicial confession to be the basis of conviction, it should not suffer from any material discrepancies and inherent improbabilities.

(vi)      Such statement essentially has to be proved like any other fact and in accordance with law.

The Trial court found the testimonies of prosecution witnesses unreliable so as to convict the accused.

            Whereas the High Court has relied on the recovery of the blood-stained clothes and the weapon which is alleged to have been used by the appellant in commission of crime.

On the other hand, the trial court disbelieved the recovery of clothes and weapon on two grounds.

 

a.         that there was no memorandum statements of the accused as required under section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872; and

b.        the recovery of the knife was from an open place accessible to one and all.

            However, the Supreme Court viewed that the ground adopted by the trial court was in accordance to law.

In the view point of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, it is not permissible for the appellate court to interfere with the finding of acquittal unless the finding is found to be perverse or illegal/impossible.

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Written statement filed under Clause (5) has to be treated in the light of evidence led by prosecution.

            The Court referred to the most recent judgment of Rajesh Prasad vs State of Bihar and Another  (2022) 3 SCC 471 on the scope of interference in a case of acquittal. It was held that there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence that is available to him under fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the accused having acquitted, the presumption of innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the Court. It was also held that if two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellant court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.

            Therefore, the Supreme Court was in the opinion that the High Court has grossly erred in interfering the well reasoned judgment and order of acquittal passed by the trial court. Hence the appellant was set at liberty by quashing the impugned judgment of the High Court which convicted the appellant for the offences punishable under section 302 of the IPC and affirming judgment of the trial court.

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            The fact which led to the conviction of appellant by the Division Bench of the High Court of Calcutta under Section 302 of IPC, was that dead body of wife of appellant was found on the railway track. During investigation, it was revealed that appellant, his deceased wife and his son had gone to a Mela from where she went missing and also he confessed before the three police (prosecution witnesses) that he had murdered the deceased with weapon.

But trial court acquitted the appellant because it disbelieved the testimonies of three prosecution witnesses (police) as being inconsistent with each other.

The trial court observed that where the prosecution case is entirely based on extra-judicial confession and the prosecution seeks conviction of the accused on the extra-judicial confession, the evidence of the witnesses before whom the alleged confession statement was made, requires a greater scrutiny to pass the test of credibility.

 

Coram:  

Justice B.R. Gavai  And Justice Sanjay Karol

Case:

Nikhil Chandra Mondal Versus State Of West Bengal (Criminal Appeal No. 2269 Of 2010)

Date of Judgment : 3.03.2023

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