IMPORTANT POINT
The judgment emphasizes the importance of complying with legal provisions for obtaining confessional statements and the significance of corroborating evidence.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. - The appellant questions the propriety of the impugned judgment of conviction of August 10, 2021 under Section 302 of the Penal Code and the sentence passed on the same day imposing life imprisonment.

2. Several grounds have been urged on behalf of the appellant. For a start, the appellant says that the entire investigation was faulty since the investigating officer in this case was an Assistant Sub-Inspector who assumed authority as the investigating officer without being conferred the same. The appellant submits that as a general rule, in terms of Rule 36 in Part V of the Assam Police Manual, which applies to the State by virtue of a notification of July 9, 2015, the Assistant Sub-Inspector could not have acted as the investigating officer. Indeed, the appellant says that the manner in which the investigation was conducted, certain observations were recorded by the investigating officer and, ultimately, his testimony in court would demonstrate that key aspects were ignored that led to a complete miscarriage of justice. The appellant points out that though a murder weapon was supposed to have been recovered from the garden outside the house of the appellant, allegedly at the appellant's prompting, the purported murder weapon was not shown to the eye-witnesses. It is the further contention of the appellant that one of the eye-witnesses testified that the appellant had thrown the murder weapon at the place of occurrence before fleeing therefrom; and, in such circumstances, there was no question of recovering the murder weapon from the garden next to the appellant's residence. Other discrepancies as to the dates of forwarding the appellant for police custody and re-forwarding him are also pointed out.

3. As to the testimonies of the three eye-witnesses, the appellant says that none of them referred to the appellant stabbing the victim or committing the offence with which he was charged. The appellant also brings out the anomalies in the first information report and the oral evidence in course of the trial of the maker of such report and the person who is alleged to have informed such maker of the incident.

4. Most importantly, the appellant seeks to disown and discredit the confessional statement which is attributed to the appellant and which was recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 by an Executive Magistrate. The appellant claims that in course of his examination under Section 313 of the Code, in response to the tenth question put to him pertaining to the evidence of the relevant Executive Magistrate, the appellant had clearly asserted that the appellant was coerced into making such statement and feared at the relevant time that if he did not make such statement then he would be beaten up by the police. Towards such end, the appellant also relies on a medical report, of a day after the appellant was arrested, when the appellant complained of a pain in one of his ankles and he was advised to have the ankle x-rayed. A pain- killer and an antibiotic were prescribed.

5. On the other aspect of the confessional statement, the appellant relies on high authorities to assert that the conditions indicated in Section 164 of the Code have to be complied with in letter and spirit before a confessional statement can be used against an accused. According to the appellant, he was not appropriately warned of the consequences of making the statement, not given the reassurance that he needed for the statement to be considered to be voluntary and the Executive Magistrate mechanically recorded the statement without complying with the essence of the requirements under Section 164 of the Code.

6. The incident occurred on July 21, 2002. It is fairly evident that the incident occurred between 11 and 11:30 am on a Sunday. The FIR was lodged by the Rangbah Shnong of Mootyrshiah Wah at about 4:10 pm at the Raliang Outpost of the Jowai Police Station. The FIR recorded that the victim was killed by the