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Case Commentary Aghnoo Nagesia Vs State Of Bihar 1966 Air 119
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CASE COMMENTARY AGHNOO NAGESIA VS
STATE OF BIHAR 1966 AIR 119
AUTHORS: DIVYANSHI
KHEMKA, SMRITI SINGH
& BHAVYA SINGH
INDEX OF AUTHORITIES
CASE LAWS
1.
Palvinder Kaur v. State of Punjab 1952 AIR 354
2.
Pakala Narayanaswami v. The King Emperor (1939) 41
BOMLR 428
3.
State of U.P. v. Deoman Upadhyaya 1960 AIR 1125
STATUTES
1.
Indian Evidence Act, 1872
2.
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
FACTS
- Aghnoo
Nagesia, the appellant, is accused of killing his aunt Ratni, her daughter
Chamin, her son-in-law Somra, and Somra’s son Dilu over a property
dispute.
- A
personally reported the murder in an FIR at the Palkot Police Station,
where he provided certain damning details that led to the finding of the
bodies and the murder weapon.
- However,
there were no witnesses. The FIR report, which reportedly contained the
appellant’s full confession of guilt, was the sole major piece of evidence
used against A.
- The
Chotanagpur Judicial Commissioner regarded A’s FIR statement as a
confession and found him guilty. In an appeal, the Patna High Court upheld
both the conviction and the death sentence.
- As
a result, A requested special leave to petition the Supreme Court.
FACT IN ISSUE
The question
before the court was whether or not Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872
applied to the entirety of A’s statement, prohibiting it from being used as
evidence, or only those parts that dealt with A’s admission of actually
committing the crime.
CONTENTIONS
It is argued
that the entire statement is a confession made to a police official and cannot
be used against the appellant, according to S. 25 of the Indian Evidence Act,
1872, One of the legal provisions addressing an accused person's
confessions is Section 25 of the Evidence Act. The Evidence Act's sections 24
to 30 and the Code of Criminal Procedure's sections 162 and 164 basically
include the law governing confessions. The "Admissions" section of
the Evidence Act is where you'll find Sections 17 to 31. A type of admission,
confession is covered in ss. 24 to 30. Unless its admissibility is prohibited
by a legal rule, a confession or an admission constitutes evidence against the
maker. Section 24 disallows confessions obtained using specific coercion,
threats, or promises. Section
25 provides:
"No confession made to a police officer, shall be proved as against a
person accused of an offence." The provisions of s. 25 must be followed.
Under no circumstances is a confession made to a police officer admissible as
evidence against the accused. It covers both a confession made while he was
free and not in the custody of the police as well as a confession made prior to
the start of any investigation. Whether or not a person was charged with an
offence when he made the confession, the phrase "accused of any
offence" refers to everyone who was charged with an offence at the trial.
Except when made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate, Section 26 forbids
the use of a confession that a person makes while in the custody of a police
officer as evidence against them.
LEGAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED
- Section
24- Confession caused by inducement, threat or promise, when irrelevant in
criminal proceedings.
A confession
made by an accused person is irrelevant in a criminal proceeding if the making
of the confession appears to the Court to have been caused by any inducement,
threat or 1promise having reference to the charge against the accused person,
proceeding from a person in authority and sufficient, in the opinion of the
Court, to give the accused person grounds which would appear to him reasonable
for supposing that by making it he would gain any advantage or avoid any evil
of a temporal nature in reference to the proceedings against him.
- Section
25- Confession to police officer not to be proved.
No confession
made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any
offence.
- Section
26- Confession by the accused while in custody of Police not to be proved
against him.
No confession
made by any person whilst he is in the custody of a police officer unless it be
made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate, shall be proved as against such
person.
- Section
27- How much of information received from the accused, may be proved.
Provided that,
when any fact is deposed to as discovered in consequence of information
received from a person accused of any offence, in the custody of a police
officer, so much of such information, whether it amounts to a confession or
not, as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered, may be proved.
IMPORTANT LEGAL PROVISIONS ENTRENCHED
IN THE CASE:
- What
is a confession?
The Indian
Evidence Act of 1872 doesn’t define the word “confession” anywhere. The Supreme
Court had already endorsed this definition in the case of Palvinder Kaur v. State of Punjab[1],
but the Court chose to follow it in Pakala
Narayanaswami v. The King Emperor[2].
Lord Atkin’s
definition was as follows:
“….no
statement that contains self-exculpatory matter can amount to confession, if
the exculpatory statement is of some fact which if true would negative the
offence alleged to be confessed. Moreover, a confession must either admit in
terms of the offence, or at any rate substantially all the facts which
constitute the offence. An admission of a gravely incriminating fact, even a
conclusively incriminating fact, is not of itself a confession, e.g., an
admission that the accused is the owner of and was in recent possession of the
knife or revolver which caused death with no explanation of any other man’s
possession.”
In State of U.P.
v. Deoman Upadhyaya[3],
the court likewise agreed with Justice Shah’s definition of a confession as a
statement made by a person inferring or declaring that they have committed a
crime.
- Does
the FIR that the accused filed with the police, in which he confessed to
committing the crime, count as a confession and serve as evidence of the
accused’s guilt?
No. The first
information report is a confessional statement made by the accused to a police
officer; Section 25 forbids proving a confession.
- Does
only the incriminating portion of a statement that a person makes against
himself qualify as a confession, or will the entire statement be viewed as
a confession if it contains both exculpatory and incriminating statements?
The court held
that all confessional comments, including those that are both incriminatory and
exculpatory, must be taken into account. It would be unfair to the accused to
only take into account the incriminating evidence and ignore the exculpatory
evidence. The entire confessional statement, including the admissions of minor
incriminating facts, must be excluded if the proof of the confession is
prohibited by any legal provision, such as Sections 24, 25, and 26 of the
Indian Evidence Act of 1872, with the exception of those parts that may be proven
under another legal provision, such as Section 27 of the Evidence Act, 1872.
The court held
that:
A statement which contains self-exculpatory
matter cannot amount to a confession, if the exculpatory statement is of some
fact which, if true, would negative the offence alleged to be confessed. If an
admission of an accused is to be used against him, the whole of it should be
tendered in evidence, and if part of the admission is exculpatory and part
inculpatory, the prosecution is not at liberty to use in evidence the
inculpatory part only. The accused is entitled to insist that the entire
admission including the exculpatory part must be tendered in evidence.
The
confession is tainted, the taint attaches to each part of it. It is not
permissible in law to separate one part and to admit it in evidence as a non-confessional
statement. Each part discloses some incriminating fact, i.e., some fact which
by itself or along with other admitted or proved facts suggests the inference
that the accused committed the crime, and though each part taken singly may not
amount to a confession, each of them being part of a confessional statement
partakes of the character of a confession. If a statement contains an admission
of an offence, not only that admission but also every other admission of an
incriminating fact contained in the statement is part of the confession.
- Does
the Indian Evidence Act, 1872’s Section 24 prohibit merely confessions of
having committed an offence, or does it also prohibit the admission of any
remark that can be construed as incriminating?
Only those
portions of the confession covered by Sections 24, 25, or 26 and allowed to be
used as evidence by Section 27 may be presented. According to Section 27, the
Court may accept any information that clearly results in the discovery of a
fact as a result of the information, regardless of whether it amounts to a
confession or not, as evidence.
The court stated
that:
Proof of not
only the admission of the offence but also the admission of every other
incriminating fact such as the motive, the preparation and the subsequent conduct
is excluded by S. 24. To hold that the proof of the admission of other
incriminating facts is not barred by S. 24 is to rob the section of its
practical utility-and content.
- Is
it necessary for the accused to be in police custody in order for Section
27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 to be applied? Can information given
to the police by the accused when they are not in jail fall under Section
27’s purview?
In theory,
absolutely. When the accused provided the information while in the police’s
custody, Section 27 is applicable. However, in some circumstances where the
accused is not in police custody, his testimony may be admitted into evidence
in accordance with Section 27 if it can be demonstrated that the police had
constructive custody of the accused.
In the matter at
hand, the Court considered whether an accused would be considered to have
submitted himself to the custody of the police officer within the meaning of
Section 27 if he provided direct information to the police officer while filing
the FIR, which may be used as evidence against him.
JUDGMENT
- The
Supreme Court held that the confession offered by the accused to a police
officer in the FIR report is banned by Section 25 of the Indian Evidence
Act and cannot be used as evidence.
- Confessions
are divided into sections and may show not only the commission of the
crime but also incriminating aspects such as motive, preparation,
opportunity, provocation, the weapon used, purpose, concealment of the
weapon, and subsequent behaviour of the accused.
- The
court also referred to Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, which
governs how much information obtained by the accused can be proven
(DISCOVERY STATEMENTS–This is an exception to the general rule as
Discovery Statements can be admissible in evidence taken only from
confessional statements).
- The
court held that the accused could not be convicted solely on a
confessional statement provided to police and that it could not be
accepted in evidence alone because the only thing shown was that the
accused knew where the dead bodies and weapons were. As a result, he may
be either innocent or guilty.
- As
a result, the confessional statement must be supported by other proof.
- When
there are two plausible interpretations of the evidence, the one that
favours the accused should be adopted. As a result, the accused was found
not guilty of murder.
- High
Court- The High Court accepted and rejected the case in part. Parts 6, 9,
11, 12, and 14 were rejected by the High Court. The Supreme Court found
him guilty.
- Supreme
Court - According to the Supreme Court, "save for Parts 1, 15, and 18
identifying the appellant as the creator of the first information report,
and except for the sections falling within the scope of Section 27, the
complete first information report shall be omitted from evidence."
The courts ruled that the seizure of bodies, an axe, and a blood-stained
sheet are all relevant under Section 27 of the Act.
However, this
evidence is insufficient to condemn Aghanoo Nagesia. As a result, he was
acquitted. (The criminal accusation of murder was dropped.)
ANALYSIS
A confession may
now be divided into sections that indicate not only the actual performance of
the crime but also the motive, preparation, opportunity, provocation, weapons
used, intention, hiding of the weapon, and subsequent behaviour of the accused.
Damaging fact, that is, any truth that, by itself or in conjunction with other
recognised or proven facts, if the confession is contaminated, the taint
pervades every aspect of it. In law, it is not admissible to detach one
component and introduce it as evidence as a non-confessional declaration. Each
part discloses some proven facts that suggest the accused committed the crime,
and while each part alone may not amount to a confession, each part as part of
a confessional statement has the character of a confession. If a statement
contains an admission of an offence, the confession includes not only that
admission but also every other acknowledgement of an incriminating fact
contained in the statement. 14. If proof of the confession is prohibited by
law, such as Sections 24, 25, and 26 of the Evidence Act, the entire
confessional statement, including admissions of minor incriminating facts, must
also be prohibited, unless proof is permitted by another section, such as
Section 27 of the Evidence Act. If proof of admissions of damaging facts in a
confessional statement is permissible, S. 24, 25, and 26 would be devoid of
substance and content.
CONCLUSION
Given the power
imbalance between the State and the accused, Section 25 provides significant
protection to the accused. In the absence of such safeguards, an innocent
person may be convicted of a crime he did not commit.
Article Information
Case Commentary Aghnoo Nagesia Vs State Of Bihar 1966 Air 119
Authors: Divyanshi Khemka, Smriti Singh, Bhavya Singh
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2024/06/26
- Issue 7
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International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
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