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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on February 4, 2025, acquitted a man of the charges of killing his live-in partner, finding the extra judicial confession sought to be relied upon by the prosecution lacked credibility for suffering from material contradictions.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan set aside the Bombay High Court's judgment of 2010 which affirmed the 2004 Thane trial court's conviction and sentence of life term imposed upon appellant Ramu Appa Mahapatar for murder of Manda, giving him benefit of doubt.

"The testimony of the prosecution witnesses suffers from serious lack of credibility and also hit by contradictions which strike at the very root of the prosecution case. No corroborating circumstances have been brought on record by the prosecution. No doubt there is a strong suspicion against the appellant and the needle of suspicion qua the death of Manda points towards him but as is the settled jurisprudence of this country, suspicion howsoever strong cannot take the place of hard evidence," the bench said.

After finding the accused was not in a fit state of mind when he allegedly made the extra judicial confession, the court held that it would be wholly unsafe to sustain the conviction of the appellant based on such weak circumstantial evidence which on the top of it lacked credibility.

The prosecution case was that the appellant lived with the deceased in a live-in relationship. After the incident, he was alleged to have visited her parents' house at a village and told the brother of the deceased in front of other witnesses that there was a quarrel between him and Manda following which he had assaulted the woman who succumbed to the injuries.

The trial court convicted the appellant on the basis of extra judicial confession made by him before the witnesses. The High Court dismissed his appeal.

Having heard the counsel and gone through the evidence, the bench pointed out, the top court has acknowledged that extra judicial confession is a weak piece of evidence.

Wherever the court intends to base a conviction on an extra judicial confession, it must ensure that the same inspires confidence and is corroborated by other prosecution evidence. If the extra judicial confession suffers from material discrepancies or inherent improbabilities and does not appear to be cogent, such evidence should not be considered, the bench said, citing Sahadevan Vs State of Tamil Nadu (2012).

"An extra judicial confession, if voluntary and true and made in a fit state of mind, can be relied upon by the court. The confession will have to be proved like any other fact. The value of the evidence as to confession like any other evidence depends upon the reliability of the witness to whom it is made and who gives the evidence", the bench said.

The court pointed out extra judicial confession of an offence made by the accused before a witness is one of the several instances of circumstantial evidence; there are other circumstances, such as, the theory of last seen together; conduct of the accused before or immediately after the incident; human blood being found on the clothes or person of the accused which matches with that of the accused; leading to discovery, recovery of weapon etc.

"Extra judicial confession can be relied upon and conviction can be based thereon if the evidence about the confession comes from a witness who appear to be unbiased, not even remotely inimical to the accused, and in respect of whom nothing is brought out which may tend to indicate that he may have a motive of attributing an untruthful statement to the accused," the bench said.

The court emphasised the words spoken by the witness should be clear, unambiguous and unmistakenly convey that the accused is the perpetrator of the crime and that nothing is omitted by the witness which may militate against it.

After subjecting the evidence of the witness to a rigorous test on the touchstone of credibility, the extra-judicial confession can be accepted and can be the basis of a conviction if it passes the test of credibility, it said.

If the evidence relating to extra-judicial confession is found credible after being tested on the touchstone of credibility and acceptability, it can solely form the basis of conviction. The requirement of corroboration is a matter of prudence and not an invariable rule of law, the bench added.

Having surveyed the principles governing the acceptability and evidentiary value of an extra-judicial confession, the court adverted to such confession made by the accused before the prosecution witnesses including the brother of the deceased.

Court noted the brother of the deceased was quite categorical in his cross examination that he found the accused to be in a confused state of mind. This factum has also come on record in the testimony of the other witnesses before whom such confession was made, court highlighted.

"In other words, the accused was not in a fit state of mind when he made the extra-judicial confession," the bench said.

The court also noted there were no blood stains on the clothes worn by the accused. "While various articles were seized from the place of occurrence, there was no recovery of any blood-stained clothes. There is no evidence on record that the grinding stone was recovered or that there were any blood stains on the recovered stick, not to speak of such blood stains matching the blood of the deceased," the bench noted.

Moreover, the bench found the conduct of the accused to be quite strange; instead of confessing his guilt before the police or any other authority, he first went to the landlord, and told him about the death of Manda; further telling him that he was on his way to the residence of the brother of Manda to inform him about the development.

"What is more strange is the reaction or non-reaction of the brother when the accused confessed before him that he had killed his sister Manda. This is not at all a normal behaviour of a brother. He would have certainly reacted strongly when he heard the accused saying that he had killed his sister. Instead of any such reaction, as per the prosecution case, he accompanied the accused back to his residence," the bench pointed out.

Not only the extra judicial confession of the accused lacked credibility, since the brother was clearly on record stating that the accused was in a confused state of mind when he confessed before him, the testimonies suffered from material omission, the court held.

The bench accordingly allowed the criminal appeal and ordered the man's release from the jail, if not required in any other case.

Case Title: Ramu Appa Mahapatar Vs The State of Maharashtra