the Supreme Court has ruled that confession of a co-accused cannot be the sole basis for convicting a person as courts are not under an obligation to rely on it.
Confession of a co-accused cannot be the sole basis for convicting a person as courts are not under an obligation to rely on it, the Supreme Court has ruled, while quashing the life imprisonment imposed on two persons in a murder case.
A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai said confession made by a co-accused can be considered by courts to assist them in arriving at the truth, only if the main evidence proceeds in similar direction. "Therefore, in dealing with a case against an accused, the court cannot start with the confession of a co-accused, it must begin with other evidence adduced by the prosecution.
"And after it has formed its opinion with regard to the quality and effect of the said evidence, then it is permissible to turn to the confession in order to receive assurance to the conclusion of guilt which the judicial mind is about to reach on the said other evidence," Justice Ranjana observed.
Three persons, Pratham, Pancho and Gajraj, were earlier convicted by a sessions court for murdering and robbing a farmer, Kartar Singh, on February 8, 1999 at Palwal in Faridabad. While Pancho was sentenced to death, the other two were awarded life imprisonment by the sessions court which solely relied upon the alleged extra-judicial confessional statement made by Pratham to a village panchayat member, Nathi Singh, residing in another village, about 40 km from the place of the convicts.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the conviction and awarded life sentence to the trio by reducing the death sentence of Pancho, following which two of the convicts appealed in the apex court. Upholding the convicts' appeal, the apex court cited a Constitution bench ruling of 1964 in the Haricharan Kurmi Vs State of Bihar case, that under Section 3 of Indian Evidence Act, confession of a co-accused cannot be considered as an evidence. According to the apex court, Section 3 merely enables the court to take the confession into account. "It is, not obligatory on the court to take the confession into account," the bench said.
In the present case, the apex court said the alleged confession made by Pratham was not credible and hence cannot be relied upon for the purpose of convicting the accused. "It does not stand to reason that A1-Pratham would go voluntarily to PW-4 Nathi Singh, who stayed in another village which is about 35 to 40 km away from his village and make a confessional statement to him.
"The prosecution evidence does not indicate that Pratham and Nathi Singh knew each other intimately. It is, therefore, difficult to accept the prosecution case that Pratham made any extra-judicial confession to Nathi Singh," the bench said, while quashing the convictions and directing their release.
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