TMI Blog1965 (2) TMI 134X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ran away to the house of one Mohammed Abdullah ,a neighbour of theirs. The appellant brought her buck, and after some wordy altercation between them they slept in the only room of their house. The only other inmate of the house was the appellant's second son, Kirpa Shanker, a lad of about 8 years. On the morning of August 13, 1963, Sunderpatti was found with serious injuries in the room of the house where she was sleeping and the appellant was not in the house. Sunderpatti was admitted in the Sadar Hospital Gonda, at 5.25 p.m. on that day and she died on August 26, 1963 at 3 p.m. Sahoo was sent up for trial before the Court of Sessions, Gonda, on a charge under s. 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge, on a consid ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... at day soliloquying that he had finished Sunderpatti and thereby finished the daily quarrels. This Court in a series of decisions has reaffirmed the following well-settled rule of circumstantial evidence . The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be in the first instance fully established. All the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency that they should be such as to exclude other hypotheses but the one proposed to be proved. Before we consider whether the circumstances narrated above would stand the said rigorous test, we will at the outset deal with the contention that the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ement therefore, includes both oral and written statements. Is it also a necessary ingredient of the term that it shall be communicated to another? The dictionary meaning of the term does not warrant any such extension; nor the reason of the rule underlying the doctrine of admission or confession demands it. Admissions and confessions are exceptions to the hearsay rule. The Evidence Act places them in the category of relevant evidence, presumably on the ground that, as they are declarations against the interest of the person making them, they are probably true. The probative value of an admission or a confession does not depend upon its communication to another, though, just like any other piece of evidence, it can be admitted in evidence ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... p. 262: A statement which the prisoner had been overheard muttering to himself if otherwise than in his sleep, is admissible against him, if independently proved. These passages establish that communication to another is not a necessary ingredient of the concept of confession . In this context a decision of this Court in Bhogilal Chunilal Pandya v The State of Bombay([1959] Supp. 1 S.C.R. 310) may usefully be referred to. There the question was whether a former statement made by a witness within the meaning of $. 157 of the Evidence Act should have been communicated to another before it could be used to corroborate the testimony of another witness. This Court, after considering the relevant provisions of the Evidence Act and the case- ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... may be used only as a corroborative piece of evidence. The circumstances found by the High Court, which we have stated earlier, lead to the only conclusion that the accused must have committed the murder. No other reasonable hypothesis was or could be suggested. Further, in this case, as we have noticed earlier, P.W.s 11, 13 and 15 deposed that they clearly heard the accused say when he opened the door of the house and came out at 60'clock in the morning of the fateful day that he had finished Sunderpatti, his daughter-in-law, and thereby finished the daily quarrels . We hold that this extra- judicial confession is relevant evidence: it certainly corroborates the circumstantial evidence adduced in the .case. In the result, we ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
