HYDERABAD: An extra-judicial confession made by an accused attains greater credibility and evidentiary value if it is supported by a chain of cogent circumstances and is further corroborated by other prosecution evidence. If such confession is the basis for conviction, it should not suffer from any material discrepancies and inherent improbabilities. Further, extra-judicial confession statement alone cannot be made the basis to confirm the conviction, when it is doubtful or when it is surrounded by suspicious circumstances. The courts will examine with greater care and caution if such confession is a weak type of evidence.
(Extra-judicial confession is a confession made out of court and not a part of judicial examination or investigation. Such a confession must be corroborated by some other proof of the body of the crime, or else it is insufficient to warrant a conviction.)
The Supreme Court had held as follows in the Vijay Shankar vs State of Haryana case of 2016:
(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.
In an appeal before the Hyderabad High Court, the appellant-accused challenged the order of the special sessions judge, Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh sentencing him to undergo life imprisonment for an offence (Section 302 of IPC) causing the death of his wife by strangulation.
The case of the prosecution is that the accused had married a woman (first wife) and had a son. After her death, he married another woman (deceased) and had two more sons. He got addicted to alcohol and neglected the family. As the woman (second wife) started questioning his vice, he tortured her. Unable to bear it, she left the matrimonial house twice or thrice. Her brother held panchayats and the accused would bring back her with a promise that he would look after her well. On the day of the incident, she questioned him when he came home drunk. He beat her indiscriminately, pushed her down on the floor, tied a plastic rope around her neck and strangulated her to death. Then he fled from the hut.
The police registered a case basing on a complaint lodged by her brother and took up an investigation. On the third day, the accused approached the village revenue officer (VRO) who was at the MRO’s office along with another person and made an extra-judicial confession before them, admitting to the guilt. They recorded his statement and turned him over to the police along with the confessional statement. He remanded in judicial custody.
Later, police filed a charge sheet under Section 302 of IPC before the trial court. As per the VRO, the accused is known to him. After considering the entire material available on record, including oral and documentary, the special sessions judge found the accused guilty and convicted and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Contesting it, he filed an appeal before the High Court.
The counsel for the appellant-accused submitted that the trial court had failed to see there were no direct witnesses to the occurrence and the case rests only on circumstantial evidence. The links to circumstantial evidence were missing to complete the chain of evidence and hence the conviction and sentence were liable to be set aside, he argued.
The state public prosecutor said that based on the extra-judicial confession made before the VRO, the trial court had rightly found the accused guilty of the offence.
The division bench comprising justices C Praveen Kumar and K Vijaya Lakshmi made it clear that the extra-judicial confessional statement alone cannot be made the basis to confirm the conviction if it was doubtful or surrounded by suspicious circumstances.
The extra-judicial confession was said to have been made before the VRO on the third day after the incident. In fact, there was no reason for the accused to go and confess before the VRO. The VRO was in MRO’s office and the accused is said to have gone there and confessed to the offence. Definitely, he could not have imagined that the VRO would be in the MRO’s office.
The said circumstance itself created some suspicion in the mind of the court. Further, there were no special reasons for the accused to confess to the commission of the offence. Feeling that the solitary circumstance, relied upon by the prosecution, was doubtful and cannot be made the basis to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the bench allowed the appeal by setting aside the conviction and sentence recorded against the accused by the lower court, and acquitted him of the said offence.