CHENNAI: Finding an extra-judicial confession of a convict not proved beyond doubt, a division bench of Madras HC has set aside the life imprisonment handed to a man for murdering his father.
The bench, consisting of Justices M Sundar and K Govindarajan Thilakavadi, passed the verdict on Friday on an appeal filed by Yuvaraj of Namakkal district against the life sentence awarded by the principal sessions court in Namakkal.
He was accused of murdering his father by inflicting a cut injury on the head on the night of May 1, 2013.
According to the prosecution, Yuvaraj had taken his father to their farm to identify a suitable site for digging a borewell. He had murdered the elderly man for denying him money to do business.
The main evidence on the side of the prosecution is the extra-judicial confession made before the local village administrative officer. After the trial, the principal sessions court handed Yuvaraj a life term. However, the division bench set aside the conviction and sentence. “... the alleged extra-judicial confession ought to have been proved beyond all reasonable doubt. Moreover, the evidence in the present case is contradictory and unacceptable in relation to the extra-judicial confession and alleged recovery (of incriminating articles). The same is not free from any suspicion,” the bench observed.
Saying that the court would generally look for independent reliable corroboration before placing any reliance upon such extra-judicial confession, the judges said there is ‘no independent reliable corroboration to accept the alleged extra-judicial confession’ in the present case.
“There is no evidence on record that the confession was made voluntarily by the accused; and therefore, this court declines to accept it and comes to a resultant conclusion that the appellant/accused was not responsible for the death of his father Kandhasamy and the prosecution had not proved its case beyond any shadow of doubt,” the bench said. It also ordered his immediate release unless wanted in some other case.