An extrajudicial confession is admissible as evidence in a criminal case, but it should be used only as corroborative evidence and cannot be the sole ground of conviction.

Judgement

SUBBA RAO, J.: Sahoo, the appellant, is a resident of Pachperwa in the District of Gonda. He has two sons, Badri and Kirpa Shankar. He lost his wife years ago. His eldest son, Badri, married one Sunderpatti, Badri was employed in Lucknow, and his wife was residing with his father. It is said that Sunderpatti developed illicit intimacy with Sahoo; but there were incessant quarrels between them. On August 12, 1963, during one of those quarrels, Sunderpatti ran away to the house of one Mohammed Abdullah, a neighbour of theirs. The appellant brought her back, 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 Shankar, 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.

2. The learned Sessions Judge, on a consideration of the entire evidence came to the conclusion that Sahoo killed Sunderpatti. On that finding, he convicted the accused under S. 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to death. On appeal, a Division Bench of the High Court at Allahabad confirmed both the conviction and the sentence. Hence the appeal.

3. Except for an extra-judicial confession, the entire evidence in the case is circumstantial. Before we advert to the arguments advanced in the appeal it will be convenient to narrate the circumstances found by the High Court, which are as follows: (1) The accused had illicit connections with the deceased; (2) the deceased and the accused had some quarrel on the Janmashtami day in the evening and the deceased has to be persuaded through the influence of their neighbours. Mohammed Abdullah and his womenfolk, to go back to the house of the accused; (3) the deceased was seen in the company of the accused for the last time when she was alive; (4) during the fateful night 3 persons, namely, the accused, the deceased and the accused s second son. Kirpa Shankar (P. W. 17), slept in the room inside the house; (5) on the early morning of next day, P. W.17 was asked by his father to go out to attend to calls of nature, and when he came back to the varandah of the house he heard some gurgling sound, and he saw his father going out of the house murmuring something; and (6) P. Ws. 9, 11, 13 and 15 saw the acceesed going out of the house at about 6 a.m. on that day soliloquying that he had finished Sunderpatti and thereby finished the daily quarrels.

4. 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."

5. 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 soliloquy of the accused admitting his guilt was not an extrajudicial confession as the Courts below held it to be if it was an extra-judicial confession, it would really partake the character of direct evidence rather than of circumstantial evidence. It is argued that it is implicit in the concept of confession, whether it is extra-judicial or judicial, that it shall be communicated to another. It is said that one cannot confess to himself; he can only confess to another. This raises an interesting point, which falls to be decided on a consideration of