The judgment emphasizes the importance of corroboration in convicting based on a confession and the admissibility of confessions under Section 30 of the Indian Evidence Act.

1. In this case it has been found that first accused bought a tumblerful of arrack of second prosecution witness and after mixing Viram, or corrosive sublimate, with it gave it to deceased, who was taken ill immediately and eventually died. First accused was charged with and convicted of murder and has been found guilty in this Court of administering an unwholesome drug with intent to cause hurt to deceased, an offence punishable under Section 338 of the Indian Penal Code., The case comes before me in consequence of a difference of opinion as to second accused, who was charged with and convicted of abetting first accused.

2. The main evidence against second accused is an alleged confession by first accused, Exhibit D, and the first question is whether, that confession is admissible at all. It is urged that it is not, because, in the words of one of the, learned Judges before whom the case originally came, it does not satisfy the requirements of Section 30 of the Indian Evidence Act inasmuch as it is a confession of guilt only of the lesser offence under Section 328, not of the offence of murder, for which alone, it is said, second accused was being tried. With all respect, I cannot follow the reasoning involved. Section 30, no doubt, provides that the confession of one accused can be taken into consideration against another, only when they are being tried jointly for the same offence, the offence (as the explanation shows) including abetment or attempt. But it is not possible to hold that persons tried, jointly for a major offence and eventually convicted of a minor offence, as first accused has been and second accused may be here, with reference to Section 328 of the Criminal Procedure Code are not tried for the latter also. For, otherwise, their conviction, of the latter, which, it is hot disputed, would be legitimate, would be had after no trial at all. The correct view is clearly that persons under trial for a major offence are also being charged with and tried for any minor offence or offences, constituted by the particular ingredients of the major offence which may be proved; and it can make no difference that the conviction of one accused of a minor offence takes place only in appeal, when the course of the proceedings has been, as in the present case, the same against them both.

3. No authority regarding the application of Section 30 to cases in which a conviction of a minor, after trial for a major offence is in question, has been cited ; and it will serve no useful purpose, in view of the foregoing, to go in detail through the cases relied on before me and in the referring orders of the learned Judges, since they deal with issues which do not at present arise, For they support one or other of two distinct principles, of which neither is relevant to this case. Firstly, they are decisions, such as Imperatrix v. Pitamber Jina 2 B. 61 : 1 Ind. Dec. (N.S.) 469, that the accused are not being tried jointly for the same offence, when the offences charged against each and the ingredients thereof are different. Secondly, there are others, such as Queen v. Belat Ali 19 W.R.Cr. 67 : 10 B.L.R. 453 and Empress of India v. Ganraj 2 A. 444 : 4 Ind. Jur. 581 : 1 Ind. Dec. (N.S.) 853, in which the so-called confessions did not implicate both accused concerned equally, because they were not really confessions at all, but were made to show that the deponents were not parties to the crime charged and to shift responsibility for it to the others tried with them. One case of this kind, Kusir Bap v. Emperor 21 Ind. Cas. 378 : 18 C.L.J. 590 : 14 Cr.L.J. 586, has been particularly relied on, because the facts in it are said to be similar to those before me, the statement, the admissibility, of which was disputed, having been made by one accused, who gave her husband poison, that she received it from another; but there was actually no admission by her of any offence, since, unlike, first accused in the present case, she did not admit kn