Judgment :-

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 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 i