Section 364

Death penalty to imprisonment for life; circumstantial evidence; confession before police inadmissible but recovery part is admissible = We are, therefore, convinced that the ultimate conviction of the appellant under Section 302 of IPC and the sentence of life imprisonment imposed on him by commuting the death penalty imposed by the trial Court, was perfectly justified and we do not find any good grounds to interfere with the same. The appeal fails and the same is dismissed.; confessional statement= “16. A confession or an admission is evidence against the maker of it so long as its admissibility is not excluded by some provision of law. Provisions of Sections 24 to 30 of the Evidence Act and of Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure deal with confessions. By virtue of the provisions of Section 25 of the Evidence Act, a confession made to a police officer under no circumstance is admissible in evidence against an accused. The section deals with confessions made not only when the accused was free and not in police custody but also with the one made by such a person before any investigation had begun. The expression “accused of any offence” in Section 25 would cover the case of an accused who has since been put on trial, whether or not at the time when he made the confessional statement, he was under arrest or in custody as an accused in that case or not. Inadmissibility of a confessional statement made to a police officer under Section 25 of the Evidence Act is based on the ground of public policy. Section 25 of the Evidence Act not only bars proof of admission of an offence by an accused to a police officer or made by him while in the custody of a police officer but also the admission contained in the confessional statement of all incriminating facts relating to the commission of an offence. Section 26 of the Evidence Act deals with partial ban to the admissibility of confessions made to a person other than a police officer but we are not concerned with it in this case. Section 27 of the Evidence Act is in the nature of a proviso or an exception, which partially lifts the ban imposed by Sections 25 and 26 of the Evidence Act and makes admissible so much of such information, whether it amounts to a confession or not, as relates to the fact thereby discovered, when made by a person accused of an offence while in police custody. Under Section 164 CrPC a statement or confession made in the course of an investigation, may be recorded by a Magistrate, subject to the safeguards imposed by the section itself and can be relied upon at the trial. 19. From a careful perusal of this first information report we find that it discloses the motive for the murder and the manner in which the appellant committed the six murders. The appellant produced the bloodstained sword with which according to him he committed the murders. In our opinion the first information report Ex. P-42, however is not a wholly confessional statement, but only that part of it is admissible in evidence which does not amount to a confession and is not hit by the provisions of Section 25 of the Evidence Act. The relationship of the appellant with the deceased; the motive for commission of the crime and the presence of his sister-in-law PW 11 do not amount to the confession of committing any crime. Those statements are non-confessional in nature and can be used against the appellant as evidence under Section 8 of the Evidence Act. The production and seizure of the sword by the appellant at the police station which was bloodstained, is also saved by the provisions of the Evidence Act. However, the statement that the sword had been used to commit the murders as well as the manner of committing the crime is clearly inadmissible in evidence. Thus, to the limited extent as we have noticed above and save to that extent only the other portion of the first information report Ex. P-42 must be excluded from evidence as the rest of the statement amounts to confession of committing the crime and is not admissible in evidence.”

reported in http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgst.aspx?filename=40591 Reportable IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1575 OF 2009   ANUJ KUMAR GUPTA @ SETHI GUPTA …APPELLANT VERSUS STATE OF BIHAR …RESPONDENT J U D G M E N T FAKKIR MOHAMED IBRAHIM KALIFULLA, J. 1. This appeal is directed against the judgment of the High Court … Continue reading →