Notes on confession of accused as per Evidence Act(S 24-30)

The expression confession is not defined in the Evidence Act. A confession is a statement which either admits the offence or at any rate,substantially all the facts which constitute the offence.

Admissions and confessions are exceptions to hearsay rule.The Evidence Act places them in the category of relevant evidence,presumably on the ground that as they are declarations against the interest of the person making them,they are probably true.

 Evidentiary value of confession is not very great.

   Confessions and admissions must either be accepted as a whole or rejected as a whole and the court is not competent to accept only inculpatory part while rejecting exculpatory part as incredible.

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Supreme Court: Confession Of Accused Can Be Recorded By Magistrate only if police request for it

We have no doubt that an accused person can appear before a Magistrate and it is not necessary that such accused should be produced by the police for recording the confession. But it is necessary that such appearance must be in the course of an investigation under Chapter XII of the Code. If the Magistrate does not know that he is concerned in a case for which investigation has been commenced under the provisions of Chapter XII it is not permissible for him to record the confession. If any person simply barges into the court and demands the Magistrate to record his confession as he has committed a cognizable offence, the course open to the Magistrate is to inform the police about it. The police in turn has to take the steps envisaged in Chapter XII of the Code. It may be possible for the Magistrate to record a confession if he has reason to believe that investigation has commenced and that the person who appeared before him demanding recording of his confession is concerned in such case. Otherwise the court of a Magistrate is not a place into which all and sundry can gatecrash and demand the Magistrate to record whatever he says as self-incriminatory.

As the confession recorded by PW-2 cannot be brought under Section 164 of the Code it is an idle exercise to consider whether it was voluntary or true. We may again point out, PW-2 has not stated that before taking down the confession he explained to Ranbir Singh that he was not bound to make the confession, and that if he did so, such confession might be used as evidence against him. This is sine qua non for recording a confession. Further a Magistrate is forbidden from recording any such confession until he gets satisfaction that the person is going to make a voluntary confession. There is nothing in the evidence of PW-2 that he had adopted such precaution. For all those reasons we keep that document out of the ken of consideration in this case.

Supreme Court of India

Mahabir Singh vs State Of Haryana on 26 July, 2001

Bench: K Thomas, R Sethi

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