Supreme Court: Confession of a Co-Accused is not a substantive piece of Evidence against another Co-Accused. Read Judgment

01 Aug 2018

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August 1,2018:

On Tuesday, Supreme Court has expounded that,"Confession of a co-accused cannot by itself be taken as a substantive piece of evidence against another co-accused in the absence of specific provision in law to that effect. It can at best be used or utilized in order to lend assurance to the Court".

Apex Court Bench further added that,"In the absence of any substantive evidence, it would be inappropriate to base the conviction of the appellant purely on the statements of co-accused".

SC Bench comprising of Justice AM Sapre and Justice UU Lalit was hearing an Appeal challenging correctness of Judgment passed by Punjab and Haryana HC by which it had affirmed the conviction of the appellant for offences punishable under Section 21(c) read with Section 29 of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act).

Trial court convicted the accused and sentenced all three accused.

Appellant was convicted under Section 21(c) read with Section 29 of NDPS Act and was sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for 12 years and to pay a fine of Rs.1 Lakh.

High Court, however, found that case against Appellant was made out and affirmed the order of conviction as recorded against Appellant but reduced the sentence to Rigorous Imprisonment for a period of 10 years and to a fine of Rs.1 lakh.

High Court's order was challenged by Appellant in Supreme Court.

Question before the Apex Court was "Whether the confession of a co-accused under Section 67 of the NDPS Act can be relied upon against another co-accused when there is no specific provision to that effect in the Act?".

SC Bench stated that,“As we have already indicated, this question has been considered on several occasions by judicial decisions and it has been consistently held that a confession cannot be treated as evidence which is substantive evidence against a co-accused person.”

Bench further added that,"Law laid down above has always been followed by the Supreme Court except in cases where there is a specific provision in law making such confession of a co-accused admissible against another accused".

The SC Bench concluded that,“On the touchstone of law laid down by this Court such a confessional statement of a co-accused cannot by itself be taken as a substantive piece of evidence against another co-accused and can at best be used or utilized in order to lend assurance to the Court. In the absence of any substantive evidence it would be inappropriate to base the conviction of the appellant purely on the statements of co-accused.”