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REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1706 OF 2008
R. Kuppusamy …Appellant
Versus
State Rep. by Inspector of Police,
Ambeiligai …Respondent
J U D G M E N T
T.S. THAKUR, J.
1. The short question that falls for determination in this appeal
by special leave is
whether the Courts below were justified in
convicting the appellant for the offence of murder punishable under
Section 302 IPC and in awarding imprisonment for life to him on the
basis of an extra-judicial confession that he is alleged to have made
before the Village Administrative Officer, Veriappur, (VAO for short).
The extra judicial confession was, according to the prosecution,
reduced to writing by the VAO and found sufficient by the trial Court as also by the High Court to hold the appellant guilty of having
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committed the offence with which he was charged.
That finding and
the consequent orders recorded by the Courts below have been
assailed by learned counsel for the appellant who argued that the
making of the confessional statement was, in the facts and
circumstances of the case, not only improbable but wholly
unsupported and uncorroborated by any independent evidence.
Relying upon several decisions of this Court, it was argued that the
extra judicial confession was by its very nature a weak type of
evidence which ought to be corroborated by independent evidence in
order to support a conviction of the maker of the confession. No such
corroboration was, according to Ms. Mahalakshmi Pavani forthcoming
in the instant case, which rendered the conviction and order of
sentence passed by the Courts below unsustainable in law.
2. Before we refer to the evidence adduced by the prosecution at
the trial in support of the charge framed against the appellant we
may briefly recapitulate the factual matrix in which the offence is
alleged to have been committed. According to the prosecution the
appellant is a resident of Veriappur village of Annamalaiputhur village
within the police station limits of Oddanchatram. He got married to
one Yuvarani nearly two years before the incident. Within about 10
months of the marriage, the couple was blessed with a female child
whom they named Savitha. The prosecution case is that the accused-
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appellant had developed some suspicion about the birth of the child
though it is not very clear whether the suspicion was about the
paternity of the child or the child being unlucky for the family. Be that
as it may, around the time the incident occurred the appellant is said
to have visited his village to perform the mundan ceremony of the
child who was just about 10 months old. His parents were not,
however, much excited about the mundan ceremony to be followed
by the feast. They are alleged to have told the appellant that ever
since the child was born, the family was facing problems. The
prosecution version further is that since the appellant had already
developed a suspicion about the child, he at about 11.00 a.m. on 18th
March, 2005 picked up the child and threw her in a well resulting in
the child’s death by drowning. After throwing the child into the well
the appellant is alleged to have gone to PW-5 Sakthivel, Vice
President of Veripur Panchayat Board, and told him that he had
thrown his daughter into the well. PW-5 Sakthivel is said to have
advised the appellant to go to PW-1 S.K. Natarajan, Village
Administrative Officer of Veriappur. The appellant accordingly went to
PW-1 S.K. Natarajan and narrated the incident to him. PW-1 S.K.
Natarajan is alleged to have recorded the statement made by the
appellant and taken the appellant along with him to the police station
where the former lodged the first information report regarding thePage 4
incident and produced the extra judicial confession made by the
appellant before the police.
3. A case was in the above backdrop registered in the police
station at Amblikkai under Section 302 IPC and investigation started
in the course whereof the dead body of the child was subjected to
post-mortem which revealed that the child had died because of
drowning. A charge sheet was eventually laid by the police against
the appellant for committing the murder of his daughter to which
charge the appellant pleaded not guilty resulting in his trial before the
Court of Sessions at Dindigul.
4. At the trial the prosecution examined as many as 11 witnesses
in support of its case. The appellant did not choose to lead any
evidence in his defence but pleaded innocence and false implication in
the statement made by him under Section 313 Cr.P.C. The trial Court
eventually came to the conclusion that the charge framed against the
appellant stood proved on the basis of the extra judicial confession
made by him before PW-1 S.K. Natarajan, Village Administrative
Officer of Veriappur. The Court accordingly pronounced him guilty and
sentenced him to undergo life imprisonment. Aggrieved by the order
passed by the trial Court, the appellant preferred Criminal Appeal
No.224 of 2005 before the High Court of Madras. The High Court
concurred with the view taken by the trial Court and dismissed thePage 5
appeal. In the process, the High Court affirmed the finding recorded
by the trial Court that the appellant had indeed made an extra judicial
confession which was, according to the High Court, reliable and
provided a safe basis for the Court to hold him guilty. The present
appeal assails the correctness of the aforementioned judgments and
orders as already noticed above.
5. It is common ground that there is no eye witness to the
occurrence leading to the death of the unfortunate female child who
was just about ten months old. The prosecution case rests entirely
on the extra judicial confession attributed to the appellant which has
been found by the trial Court as also the High Court to be voluntary
and truthful. That a truthful extra judicial confession made voluntarily
and without any inducement can be made a basis for recording a
conviction against the person making the confessions was not
disputed before us at the hearing. What was argued by Ms.
Mahalakshmi Pavani, counsel appearing for the appellant, was that an
extra judicial confession being in its very nature an evidence of a
weak type, the Courts would adopt a cautious approach while dealing
with such evidence and record a conviction only if the extra judicial
confession is, apart from being found truthful and voluntary, also
corroborated by other evidence. There was, according to the learned
counsel, no such corroboration forthcoming in the present case whichPage 6
according to her was sufficient by itself to justify rejection of the
confessional statement as a piece of evidence against the appellant.
Reliance, in support of the contention urged by the learned counsel,
was placed upon the decisions of this Court in Gura Singh v. State
of Rajasthan (2001) 2 SCC 205 and Sahadevan and Anr. v.
State of Tamil Nadu (2012) 6 SCC 403. In Gura Singh’s case
(supra) a two-Judge Bench of this Court was also dealing with an
extra judicial confession and the question whether the same could be
made a basis for recording the conviction against the accused. This
Court held that despite the inherent weakness of an extra judicial
confession as a piece of evidence, the same cannot be ignored if it is
otherwise shown to be voluntary and truthful. This Court also held
that extra judicial confession cannot always be termed as tainted
evidence and that corroboration of such evidence is required only as a
measure of abundant caution. If the Court found the witness to whom
confession was made to be trustworthy and that the confession was
true and voluntary, a conviction can be founded on such evidence
alone. More importantly, the Court declared that Courts cannot start
with the presumption that extra judicial confession is always suspect
or a weak type of evidence but it would depend on the nature of the
circumstances, the time when the confession is made and the
credibility of the witnesses who speak about such a confession andPage 7
whether the confession is voluntary and truthful.
6. In Sahadevan’s case (supra) a two-Judge Bench of this Court
comprehensively reviewed the case law on the subject and concluded
that an extra judicial confession is an admissible piece of evidence
capable of supporting the conviction of an accused provided the same
is made voluntarily and is otherwise found to be truthful. This Court
also reiterated the principle that if an extra judicial confession is
supported by a chain of cogent circumstances and is corroborated by
other evidence, it acquires credibility. To the same effect are the
decisions of this Court in Balbir Singh and Anr. V. State of Punjab
1996 (SCC) Crl. 1158 and Jaspal Singh @ Pali v. State of
Punjab (1997) 1 SCC 510.
7. It is unnecessary, in the light of above pronouncements, to
embark upon any further review of the decisions of this Court on the
subject. The legal position is fairly well-settled that an extra judicial
confession is capable of sustaining a conviction provided the same is
not made under any inducement, is voluntary and truthful. Whether
or not these attributes of an extra judicial confession are satisfied in a
given case will, however, depend upon the facts and circumstances of
each case. It is eventually the satisfaction of the Court as to the
reliability of the confession, keeping in view the circumstances in
which the same is made, the person to whom it is alleged to havePage 8
been made and the corroboration, if any, available as to the truth of
such a confession that will determine whether the extra judicial
confession ought to be made a basis for holding the accused guilty.
8. In the case at hand the trial Court as also the first Appellate
Court have both found the extra judicial confession attributed to the
appellant to be voluntary, truthful and unaffected by any inducement
that could render it unreliable or unworthy of credence. Having heard
learned counsel for the parties at considerable length and having
gone through the evidence adduced at the trial, we are of the view
that the conclusion drawn by the Courts below is not vitiated by any
error of fact or law. The confessional statement in the case at hand
has been made by the appellant almost immediately after the
commission of the crime. The appellant is alleged to have gone over
to PW-1 S.K. Natarajan, Village Administrative Officer, who was the
concerned Village Administrative Officer of Veriappur and narrated to
the witness the genesis of the incident leading to his throwing baby
Savitha into the well at a short distance from his house. PW-1 S.K.
Natarajan recorded the confessional statement of the appellant,
which was marked Exh. P-1 at the trial, and got the same signed
from the appellant and took the appellant with him to the
jurisdictional police station. At the police station PW-1 S.K. Natarajan
got the first information report regarding the incident registered asPage 9
Crime No.61/05 setting legal process into motion in the course
whereof Investigating Officer was taken to the well by the appellant in
which he had thrown the child. At the well, the Inspector of police
prepared the Mahazar which was signed by the witness including PW-
1 S.K. Natarajan himself and took charge of the dead body of the
child which had, by that time, been brought out of the well. A towel
lying about 20 ft. from the well was also seized.
9. PW-1 S.K. Natarajan was cross-examined at length but there
is nothing in the cross-examination that could possibly discredit his
deposition. No enmity has ever existed between the witness and the
appellant to suggest a false implication of the appellant. The only
significant suggestion made in the course of the cross-examination, is
that the confessional statement was not recorded by the witness in
his office as stated by him but at the police station and in the
presence of the sub-inspector concerned. This suggestion has been
denied by the witness including the suggestion that the statement
ought to have been recorded in the prescribed form under the rules
and the reason why it was not so recorded was because the
statement had been put in black and white at the police station using
an ordinary white paper. The witness stated that the statement was
recorded on a plain paper because the prescribed forms were not
readily available in his office.Page 10
10. The deposition of PW-1 S.K. Natarajan inspires confidence in
the absence of any material deficiency in the same either in terms of
what has been recorded by him or the procedure that he followed
while doing so. More importantly, there is no suggestion that this
witness had any animosity or other reason which would impel him to
go so far as to involve the appellant in a case of murder. Courts
below have, in our opinion, correctly appreciated the deposition of
this witness and found him to be reliable. The concurrent finding of
fact returned by the two Courts, has not, in our opinion caused any
miscarriage of justice to warrant our taking a different view.
11. Coming to the question
whether the statement was
corroborated by other evidence, we find that such corroboration is
indeed forthcoming in the form of medical evidence and the
deposition of other witnesses.
The medical evidence adduced in the
case suggests that the death of the deceased child was homicidal and
that the same was caused by drowning.
The deposition of PW-10 Dr.
A. Muthusamy, in our opinion, is clear on this aspect, although it was
vehemently contended by Ms. Mahalakshmi Pavani, that the doctor
had not mentioned the presence of water in the lungs of the child
which, according to her, showed that the story of the child dying by
drowning was unsupported by medical evidence.
The fact, however,
remains that the doctor has reported the lungs of the deceased to be
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congested.
Congestion of lungs implies presence of excess fluids in
the lungs, a sign suggesting that the child would have inhaled excess
fluid while in water. In addition, there is a finding by the doctor that
there was 200 MLs. of watery fluid even in the stomach of the
deceased. According to Modi’s Jurisprudence and Toxicology, the
presence in the stomach of a certain quantity of water is regarded as
an important sign of death by drowning. It is almost impossible for
water to get into the stomach, if a body is submerged after death.
12. All this suggests that the death was caused by taking in water
which one usually does while struggling in a drowning situation.
Absence of any other marks on the body of the child also supports
the prosecution case that the deceased had indeed died of drowning.
The confessional statement thus gets sufficient corroboration as to
the cause of the death of the child.
13. That apart the depositions of other witnesses examined before
the trial Court also lend corroboration to the prosecution version. For
instance PW-2 Kanakaran deposed that he was plucking chilly in his
field near the field of the appellant on the fateful day. At around
12.00 noon the witness heard someone crying at Chelimedu. The
witness and other persons in the vicinity rushed and looked into the
well only to find the dead body of the child floating. The witness
descended into the well and picked up the child and brought her out.Page 12
The child was dead. The wife of the appellant was crying and saying
that the child had been thrown into the well and that the appellant
had killed her.
14. In cross-examination the witness expressed ignorance about
any ‘mundan’ ceremony or arrangements for the same having been
made by the appellant and that he had no invitation for any such
ceremony. The wife of the appellant was, according to the witness,
saying that the appellant ‘suspected the birth’ of the child meaning
thereby that the appellant was either suspicious about the paternity
of the child or her being unlucky for the family.
15. To the same effect is the statement of PW-3 Palanisamy
according to whom the wife of the appellant was crying aloud.
Persons from the nearby fields came running to the well and so did
this witness. The appellant’s wife was heard saying that the child had
been killed. Kanakaran PW-2 climbed down the well and brought the
body of the child out and kept the same on the western side of the
well. Inspector of police reached in due course and interrogated him.
16. PW-4 Manoharan was declared hostile but was cross-examined
and confronted with the statement made before the police regarding
the appellant having been seen by him walking away from the place
of occurrence under tension. PW-5 Sakthivel, President of Veripur
Panchayat Board, stated that the appellant had come to him and toldPage 13
him that the child had fallen into the well and asked him as to what
he should do in the matter. He had told him to go to Maniakarar. This
witness was also declared hostile and confronted with the statement
made before the police under Section 161 of the Cr.P.C.
17. Statement of PW-6 Palaniammal who happened to be the
grandmother of the deceased child is also significant. This witness
stated that the child was born 10 months after the marriage of the
appellant. The wife of the appellant had stayed on with her parents’
for seven months after the child was born. She was finally brought to
her matrimonial house by the witness and the appellant. Three
months later, on 18 th March, 2005 the appellant returned from
Pondicherry where he worked and told her that he had come for
performing the ‘mundan’ ceremony of his daughter and asked the
witness why she was going to the field when such a ceremony was
being held. The witness stated that if the ceremony had to be
organised he should have informed them ten days earlier so that they
could have arranged to perform the ceremony in a grand manner.
The witness told him that since she had engaged two persons for
picking groundnuts, he should take his father and perform the
mundan. In due course, the father of the appellant also reached the
field and while picking up groundnuts along with the labourers, they
received the information that the child was missing. They rushed back
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only to find the child floating in the well. The presence of the
appellant in the village on the date of the occurrence is established by
the deposition of this witness and so is the fact that the parents of
the appellant were not much concerned or happy to join the proposed
mundan ceremony. The prosecution case, it is important to note, is
that ever since the child’s birth, there were problems between the
appellant and his parents regarding the child being unlucky for the
family which resulted in the unfortunate incident of the appellant
throwing the child into the well.
18. It is manifest from the above that there is considerable
corroborative evidence on record to support the extra judicial
confessional statement of the appellant in which the appellant has
referred to some kind of suspicion and disagreement between him
and his parents regarding the child because of which he threw the
child into the well.
Suffice it to say that it is not one of those cases
where the confessional statement is made to a person whose
credibility is suspected nor is it a case where there is no corroboration
forthcoming from other evidence on record.
On both counts the view
taken by the Courts below appears to us to be perfectly justified. The
same, therefore, warrants no interference from us under Article 136
of the Constitution.
19. In the result this appeal fails and is hereby dismissed.Page 15
……………………...…………..………....…J.
(T.S. THAKUR)
……………………...……………………...…J.
(SUDHANSU JYOTI
MUKHOPADHAYA)
New Delhi
February 19, 2013
