Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

9. The next pace of evidence is the judicial confession made by the accused persons before the Magistrate P.W. 2. The accused persons have confessed to have killed the deceased, but say that they did so as the deceased started abusing them in obscene language. This explanation or justification for the assault being somewhat exculpatory in nature end, for reasons already discussed in connection with the extrajudicial confession, being unacceptable as true, can be discarded and the I inculpatory part of the judicial confession can be relied on, in absence of any other infirmity in the same. This confession, however; was held inad- missible in evidence by the Sessions Judge on the ground that sufficient time had not been given to the accused persons for reflection. The same ground of attack also is repeated by the defence counsel here. It appears from the evidence of P.W. 2. the Magistrate, that the accused were produced before him.: by the police at 12,30 p.m. on 11-4-1972. He disclosed his identity to them and after warning them that whatever they might say may be used against them, gave them time for reflection till 4 p.m. Again at 4 p. m, he repeated his warning and thereafter recorded the confessional statement. According to the Sessions Judge the time of 3 1/2 hours given to the accused persons for cool reflection was not sufficient and that they should have been given at least 24 hours as is indicated in a Supreme Court case (Sarwan Singh v. State of Punjab). I do not think that whatever the Supreme Court said in that case was a rule of law. There is no universal rule as to the extent of time to be allowed, for cool reflection, to the accused persons desirous of confession. In the cases of Dewan Chand v The State. ; Akal Ali v. The State, 1970 Cri LJ 781 (Assam) and Subodh Kumar Dhar Ray v. State, 1966 Cri LJ 323 (2) (Cal) three hours of reflection were considered to be sufficient. The object of giving time for cool reflection to the accused persons is to give them sufficient time to free themselves from possible inducement or coercion which might have been exercised by or on behalf of the police on them for the purpose of confession. No suggestion has been made either to the Magistrate or to the I. O. that the accused persons were terrorised or induced by or on behalf of the police to make the confession which they did before the Magistrate. The facts of the present case are, therefore, not parallel to those of the case of Sarwan Singh v. State of Punjab (supra). In my opinion this judicial confession was voluntary and as indicated by other evidence on record was true. The learned Sessions Judge was wrong in discarding this evidence on the sole ground that sufficient time for reflection had not been given. This confession is, therefore, accepted as a valid piece of evidence on which alone the conviction could have been based. But. in this case, the direct and circumstantial evidence discussed above amply corroborate this judicial confession.