Supreme Court: In an appeal filed by the appellant challenging his conviction under Section 302 of Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), the three-Judges Bench of Vivian Bose, N.H. Bhagwati and B. Jagannadhadas*, JJ., stated that in the present case, the various circumstances set out were clear and sufficient as corroborating the confession and that they definitely implicated the appellant. The circumstances relied on in the present case were not for basing the conviction of the appellant, but only to corroborate the direct evidence which was afforded by the retracted confession. Undoubtedly, to be corroborative, these circumstances must implicate the appellant. However, it was not necessary that they should go to the length of being independently sufficient for conviction. Thus, the Supreme Court found no substance in the appeal and accordingly, dismissed the appeal.
Background
The appellant was a Railway Police Constable with a duty of watching certain yards at Ghorpuri Railway Station near Poona. The deceased was a constable in the Watch and Ward Department. The case against the appellant was that on night of 23-08-1951, the deceased found the appellant associating with an ex-convict and bad character. Subsequently, an oral report about this was conveyed to the superior officer of the appellant on 25-8-1951. It was said that due to this, the appellant bore a grudge against the deceased and committed his murder on the night of 26-08-1951.
The undisputed facts were that on the said night, the appellant was on the duty at the station yards and in the course of that duty, he had a musket with ten live cartridges. Shortly after the appellant took charge, he left the yard with the musket and cartridges. When the appellant returned after some time, he went straight to the Assistant Station Master of Railway Station and informed him that he had fired two shots from the musket against a person and that a person was killed.
The Assistant Station Master conveyed this information to the Poona Railway Station by telephone. Thereafter, a police Sub-Inspector rushed to the place and the musket and the pouch containing only eight live cartridges were taken away from the appellant and he was kept under surveillance. The scene of the occurrence was visited, and the dead body of the deceased was found lying there. Two cartridges similar to the live cartridges taken from the pouch in possession of the appellant were also found there. Further investigation followed, and the appellant was charged and tried for having committed the murder.
The prosecution mainly relied on the evidence relating to the statement made by the appellant to the Assistant Station Master, which as per the prosecution amounted to a confession. They also relied on the evidence of certain circumstances which were said to corroborate the confession.
The appellant was tried by the Sessions Judge, Poona (‘Sessions Judge’) for committing the murder of the deceased by firing two shots from a musket. The Jury found him guilty by a unanimous verdict. The Sessions Judge accepted the verdict passed by the Jury and convicted the appellant under Section 302 of IPC and sentenced him to transportation for life. An appeal was filed to the Bombay High Court, which was dismissed summarily at the admission stage. Thus, the present appeal was filed.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Supreme Court noted that the prosecution case was mainly based on the statement made to the Assistant Station Master whose evidence, if accepted, would amount to a confession by the appellant that he intentionally fired the two shots and killed the deceased. However, the appellant at the trial denied making such a statement and stated that he made a different stated. The Supreme Court stated it was clear that the alleged confession was retracted and even if believed would require substantial corroboration before it could be acted upon.
The Supreme Court observed the appellant’s contention that the Assistant Station Master showed a number of versions regarding the appellant’s statements and the Sessions Judge should have held that there was no reliable version of the alleged confession to go to the Jury. The appellant further contended that the Sessions Judge did not clearly bring out the infirmities of an oral and extra-judicial confession and this was a serious non-direction. The Supreme Court stated that there was no substance in this objection, since the Sessions Judge had in fact sufficiently dealt with it in his charge. The Supreme Court stated that the various versions were not inconsistent with each other and even if any one of them goes the length of the prosecution case, the matter was one properly to be left to the Jury.
The Supreme Court stated that the circumstances relied on in the present case were not for basing the conviction of the appellant, but only to corroborate the direct evidence afforded by the retracted confession. Undoubtedly, to be corroborative, these circumstances must implicate the appellant. However, it was not necessary that they should go to the length of being independently sufficient for conviction.
The Supreme Court stated that in the present case, the various circumstances set out were clear and sufficient as corroborating the confession and that they implicated the appellant. The fact that at the scene of occurrence, two cartridges were found which were missing from the pouch taken from the appellant and the priest, saw an armed constable proceeding from the scene of occurrence, might well implicated the appellant and the matter was properly left to the Jury.
The Supreme Court further stated that in addition to the above, if the evidence of the witnesses was believed that they saw the deceased come out of his house at the material period of time in response to a call from some person and going in the company of an armed constable, would indicate that the defence set up was probably not true and to that extent would corroborate the confession.
Thus, the Supreme Court found no substance in the present appeal and accordingly, dismissed the appeal.
[Babu Ram Chandra Shelke v. State of Bombay, (1954) 2 SCC 231, decided on 06-08-1954]
*Judgment authored by: Justice B. Jagannadhadas
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Appellant: H.J. Umringer, Advocate (Appointed at the expenses of the State Government);
For the Respondent: Porus A. Mehta and P.G. Gokhale, Advocates.
*Note: Corroboration of retracted confession
In Pyare Lal Bhargava v. State of Rajasthan, 1962 SCC OnLine SC 25, it was held that:
“A retracted confession may form the legal basis of a conviction if the court is satisfied that it was true and was voluntarily made. But it has been held that a court shall not base a conviction on such a confession without corroboration. It is not a rule of law but is only a rule of prudence. It cannot even be laid down as an inflexible rule of practice or prudence that under no circumstances such a conviction can be made without corroboration, for a court may, in a particular case, be convinced of the absolute truth of a confession and prepared to act upon it without corroboration; but it may be laid down as a general rule of practice that it is unsafe to rely upon a confession, much less on a retracted confession, unless the court is satisfied that the retracted confession is true and voluntarily made and has been corroborated in material particulars.”
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