The Supreme Court recently comprising of a bench of CJI Uday Umesh Lalit, Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia set aside the concurrent convictions in a murder case and observed that video of confession made before the police is inadmissible as evidence. (Munikrishna @ Krishna vs State By UIsoor PS)
Facts of the case
The appellants before the court have challenged the judgment and order dated 31.8.2010 passed by the High Court of Karnataka in a Criminal Appeal which has upheld the order of conviction and sentence passed by the Trial Court against the appellants which convicted the appellants under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC, and has sentenced them for life imprisonment.
As per the police, all accused were arrested from a school building and they confessed to 24 crimes. Their confessions regarding the planning and execution of murders were video recorded and they were convicted based on the said video of confession.
Courts Observation and Judgment
The bench at the very outset observed, "In the case at hand the entire case of the prosecution is built upon the confessional/voluntary statements made by the accused persons before the police and the recovery of the alleged weapon of murder recovered at the pointing out of the accused and the recovery of alleged stolen gold material from a jewelry shop, again, on pointing out of the accused."
The bench further observed, "Both the Trial Court and the Appellate Court went completely wrong in placing reliance on the voluntary statements of the accused and their videography statements. Under Article 20(3)7 of the Constitution of India, an accused cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself. Again, under Section 258 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872; a confessional statement given by an accused before a Police officer is inadmissible as evidence."
The bench noted, "We have gone through Chart Exh. P-29. According to said chart, in so far as the present appellants are concerned, they were said to be involved in one more crime which has given rise to Special Leave Petition (Crl) Diary No.24079 of 2020 and was listed along with the instant appeal before us. That matter is still pending consideration before us. Therefore, what weighed with the Trial Court was the alleged involvement of the other members of the alleged gang in so many similar activities, in support of which there was no concrete material, other than the confessions of the appellants."
The bench, setting aside the order of the session's Court remarked, "Ordinarily, this Court does not interfere with concurrent findings of facts as they are in the present case. But, then in the present case it has become necessary to interfere with the findings for the reasons that both the High Court as well as the Sessions Court have ignored the well-established principles of criminal jurisprudence and have relied upon facts and evidence which are clearly inadmissible in a court of law. The crime indeed was ghastly, to say the least. Yet, linking the crime to the present appellants is an exercise which was to be undertaken in the court of law under established principles of law. "
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