NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has on Thursday said conviction cannot be based solely on a "weak piece of evidence" of extra-judicial confession, if it is not corroborated by any other reliable material.
A bench Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi set aside the Madras High Court judgement of July 22, 2016, which affirmed the trial court verdict convicting and awarding life term to five persons in a murder case.
The top court noted that heavy reliance was placed by the prosecution on the extra judicial confession made by one of the accused through a letter addressed to one of the prosecution witnesses in the case.
"Apart from the fact that the extra judicial confession is a very weak piece of evidence, the High Court in the impugned judgment had refused to rely upon the same on the ground that neither the handwriting expert was examined nor any opinion of handwriting expert was proved by the prosecution," the bench pointed out.
The court said in the instant case, the prosecution had not examined the expert for proving the handwritings of an accused contained in the inland letter allegedly addressed to the prosecution witness, nor obtained any opinion on it.
The bench said in its opinion, the High Court had rightly discarded the said piece of evidence with regard to the alleged extra judicial confession made by the accused.
"It cannot be gainsaid that when the extra-judicial confession is not duly proved, or does not inspire confidence or is not corroborated by any other reliable evidence, the conviction could not be based solely on such weak piece of evidence," the bench said.
The court also noted that the entire case of prosecution rested on the circumstantial evidence even as the law with regard to the appreciation of evidence when the case of the prosecution hinges on circumstantial evidence is very well-settled.
It pointed out the police placed heavy reliance on the theory of last seen together, one of the circumstances, by relying upon the evidence of two of the prosecution witnesses.
"In the instant case, even if the theory of 'last seen together' propounded by the prosecution is accepted, then also it is difficult to draw an irresistible conclusion that the accused are guilty of the alleged offences, merely because they failed to explain as to under what circumstances the victim suffered death," the bench said.
In the present case, since the super-imposition report was not supported by any other reliable medical evidence like a DNA report or post-mortem report, it would be very risky to convict the accused believing the identification of the dead body of the victim through the super-imposition test, the bench further said.
According to the prosecution in July 2007, the accused had conspired and planned to commit dacoity of a car and murder of the driver of the vehicle. The victim, John Thomas was murdered on July 18, 2007 and the body was buried in a pit. The police claimed the accused sold the Ambassador car and shared the money.
All the accused were on July 22, 2014 held guilty of murder, criminal conspiracy and other offences by the Sessions Judge, Coimbatore.
The trial court had sentenced appellants, i e, S Kaleeswaran, John Anthonisamy alias John, along with the other three accused i e, Rajesh Kumar alias Rajesh, R Ganeshkumar alias Ganesh and Muthumanickam alias Muthu, to life imprisonment.
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