Evidence Act, 1872 – s.27 – Case based on circumstantial evidence – Prosecution relied on recovery of weapon of assault (stone, gandasa) and gold chains belonging to the deceased, on the basis of statement given by the appellant in custody – Conviction of the appellant u/ss.302 and 201, IPC, if justified: Held: No – The entire case of the prosecution rests on circumstantial evidence – Where the case rests entirely on circumstantial evidence, the chain of evidence must be so far complete, such that every hypothesis is excluded but the one proposed to be proved and such circumstances must show that the act has been done by the accused within all human probability – In the present case, the testimonies of the panch witnesses raised serious doubts regarding the version of the prosecution w.r.t the alleged disclosure made by the appellant and the recoveries pursuant thereto – Courts below not justified in disregarding the glaring inconsistencies w.r.t the recoveries made by the police pursuant to the alleged disclosure made by the appellant – The manner of recovery and preparation of seizure memos also raised grave doubts about the version of disclosure and recovery put forth by the prosecution – Also, the testimony of PW-23 was not corroborated by the testimonies of PW-2, PW-3 & PW-5, thus there is doubt w.r.t to the ‘last seen’ circumstance too – Prosecution failed to prove the chain of circumstances leading to the guilt of the accused, beyond reasonable doubt – Appellant given benefit of doubt, conviction u/ss.302 and 201 set aside. [Paras 16, 22, 30-33] Evidence Act, 1872 – ss.25-27 – s.27, an exception to ss.25 and 26:
Held: ss.25 and 26 stipulate that confession made to a police officer is not admissible – However, s.27 is an exception to ss.25 and 26 and serves as a proviso to both these sections – s.27 lifts the ban, though partially, to the admissibility of confessions – The removal of the ban is not of such an extent so as to absolutely undo the object of s.26 – As such the statement whether confessional or not is allowed to be given in evidence but that portion only which distinctly relates to discovery of the fact is admissible – A discovery of a fact includes the object found, the place from which it is produced and the knowledge of the Appellant-accused as to its existence. [Paras 18, 19]
Evidence Act, 1872 – s.27 – Ingredients – Discussed. [Para 20]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Divya Pandey. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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