The admissibility of statements made by an accused person to a police officer after arrest, and the interpretation of Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act and Section 162 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Stodart, J.

1. The accused Subbiah Tevarhas been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Sundarammal. He has filed two petitions by way of appeal. In his statement made under Section 342 to the Sessions Judge he declared that the Sub-Inspector of Police P.W. 9 concocted the case against him because he refused to give him fodder for his bulls. In one of his appeal petitions he states that the case has been concocted against him by enemies because he was the principal witness in a murder case five years ago. In the referred trial the question for our decision is whether the sentence of death should not be confirmed.

2. There is no doubt that Sundarammal a woman of 60 was murdered in her field on the morning of Saturday, the 30th July. She was seen in the early morning when she set out for her field, by her daughter P.W. 5 who lives in the opposite house and by P.W. 6 her next door neighbour, and she was seen again by P.W. 7 in her field about 8 A.M. At midday her son P.W. 4 when he went to the field to take her midday meal found her lying dead near the well. Her face and the front of her head had been battered in. There was blood on the ground there. It was clear that she had been murdered there. A blood-stained stone lay near the body.

3. The motive for the murder was clear. The right ear-lobe was torn and lacerated. The left ear-lobe was completely cut off. Gold mudichus - a kind of ear ornament - which her daughter P.W. 5 had lent to the deceased the previous day to wear when she went to a neighbouring village on a visit of condolence were missing. P.W. 5 and P.W. 6 say they saw these mudichus in the ears of the deceased on the morning of the crime.

4. P.W. 9 the Sub-Inspector reached the village at 7 P.M. He held the inquest early next morning. The blood-stained stones and earth from the place where the body was lying and the blood-stained stone with which the murder might have been committed were sent by him with other things to be examined by the Chemical Examiner and Imperial Serologist and were found to be stained with human blood.

5. There was no clue to the murderer. The scene of crime is 11/2 miles from the village: the cholam crop in the field was high: the unfortunate woman had evidently been taken unawares and killed without the knowledge of anyone who might have been in the surrounding fields.

6. The accused is a member of a registered Criminal Tribe who was bound to report to the authorities when he intended to leave the village. He was absent and he had not made any report. For this reason and because he suspected that the accused might have had something to do with the murder, the Sub-Inspector left instructions in the village that the whereabouts of the accused should be reported to him. On the morning of the 26th August, P. W. lOarelationof the deceased found the accused sleeping in his field and went off to the police station four miles away to tell the Sub-Inspector. The latter happened to be at Kurukkalpatti on the main road not far away and received this information at 12-30 P. M. He went to the village at once and to the place where the accused was, and arrested him. The accused then made a statement which is the principal evidence against him. He made it in the presence of the Village Munsif P.W. 11, P.W. 12 and P.W. 10. He said according to P.W. 11 and P.W. 12:

I tore the earlobes of Sundarammal and took her mudichus. She raised an alarm.... I have kept the mudichus in my house. I shall produce them P.W. 10s recollection of this statement however is simply that the accused said:

I have kept the concerned property in my house in a hole made for a rafter in one corner, and I shall produce it. P.W. 11 and P.W. 12 also say that the accused stated that he had killed Sundarammal with a black stone so that she might not disclose the robbery. But that part of the statement is not admissible in evidence since it did not, within the meaning of Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, lead to the discove