Evidentiary value of extra judicial confession.

The appellant, Ramachandran, has been convicted of the murder of a woman named Pappal, and also of causing disappearance of the evidence of offence (sections 302, Indian Penal Code and 201, Indian Penal Code), and sentenced to death for the offence of murder. The learned Sessions Judge of Tanjore, who tried the case, has not imposed a separate sentence under section 201, Indian Penal Code, as he considered that, that was not required or desirable, following the Bench decision of this Court in Emperor v. Rama Goundan1.

The appellant and Pappal (deceased) were related, being cousins, and the appellant is a young man of about 22, while the woman definitely older. The two were in illicit intimacy, which was also a prohibited relationship, amounting to incest. Pappal was married and had two children, but she had left her husband and was living with her mother (P.W. 1) in a house the rear portion of which was occupied by the accused. We have very considerable evidence regarding the illicit intimacy, consisting of the testimonies of P.Ws. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. There is also evidence that the deceased was of loose conduct with others as well, and this is spoken to by P.Ws. 2 and 4. The suggestion for prosecution is that sexual jealousy probably motivated the appellant to commit this crime.

On Wednesday, 11th March, 1959, the appellant and the deceased were seen by Sambandam (P.W.8) proceeding towards the eastern portion of the village, the appellant then having an aruval. After that, the victim was not seen alive by anyone.

Though Pappal thus disappeared, neither her mother (P.W. 1) nor anyone else, seems to have suspected anything gravely amiss. But. at about 4-25 p.m. on 13th March, the appellant appeared before Mr. Raghavachari (P.W. 7), the Judicial Sub-Magistrate of Papanasam, while the officer was in this Court-hall. The appellant then surrendered himself, after making a statement that he had murdered Pappal on the nth of March. It is important to note that both the mother of the victim (P.W. 1) and the police came to know of this offence only through learning about the statement of the accused to the Magistrate. The subsequent report of P.W. 1 to the village headman (Exhibit P-1) and the yadhasts (Exhibits P-5 and P-5-a), were rightly excluded from consideration by the learned Sessions Judge, as within the ambit of section 162, Criminal Procedure Code. This apart, the Sub-Magistrate recorded what the accused told him (Exhibit P-2), and sent a copy of the record to the police (Exhibit P-2-a), upon which alone investigation followed. After the accused was remanded to the sub-jail by the Magistrate, he was interviewed by the Circle Inspector (P.W. 16), to whom the accused gave some information. The evidence shows that this information was furnished previous to the order of the SubMagistrate (Exhibit P-3-a), formally delivering the appellant into police custody. The importance of this will be obvious later.

In pursuance of his own statement, the appellant took the Circle Inspector, the Executive Magistrate (P.W. 15), the Medical Officer (P.W. 9) and others to the Coleroon river-bund on the afternoon of the 14th March, and took out the corpse of the deceased from the spot of burial. The body had been placed in two gunny bags’ (M.Os. 6 and 7), and chemical analysis showed that one of them was stained with human blood. There is no doubt about the identification of the corpse, and this rests upon the evidence of the mother (P.W. 1), and also upon the identity of jewels and other properties taken from the body (M.Os. 1 to 4). The appellant then took the officers to another spot, wherefrom blood-stained earth was recovered after he indicated the spot. The appellant, after this, took the party of officers to his house, and produced from where he had kept them, the aruval (M.O. 5), the spade (M.O. 9) and some clothes. Chemical analysis did not reveal that these were stained with human blood, but, as the learned Sessions