Confession of a co-accused is weak piece of evidence: Madras high court

Chennai: Pointing out that the confession statement of a co-accused is a very weak piece of evidence, the Madras high court has quashed the proceedings against an accused, who was implicated in a case registered under the NDPS Act based on the confession of a co-accused.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh allowed the petition filed by Guddu Singh alias Vikram Singh and quashed the proceedings against him pending before the I Additional Special Court for NDPS and EC Act cases at Chennai.

The NCB South Zone filed a complaint against six accused persons for an offence under various provisions of NDPS Act. The case was split up as against the petitioner. The petitioner was remanded to judicial custody on April 25, 2011, by way of P.T. Warrant and he was subsequently released on bail by order dated January 17, 2013 by this court.

The case of the prosecution was that based on secret information, the NCB department officials intercepted a car on April 21, 2004 and seized 5,250 kg of heroin. Four persons were arrested. These persons underwent trial and they were convicted. The conviction was later confirmed by this court, and it is stated that the case is now pending before the Supreme Court. The petitioner was implicated in this case based on the confession said to have been given by A-4 (Accused-4).

Concurring with the submission of R.C. Paul Kanagaraj, counsel for the petitioner, Justice Anand Venkatesh said it was an admitted case that the only material that was available against this petitioner was the confession given by the co-accused viz., A-4. If this confession was to be used against this petitioner, the same has to satisfy the requirements of Section 30 of the Evidence Act. The object of this Section was that where an accused person unreservedly confesses his own guilt and at the same time implicates another person, who was jointly tried with him for the same offence, his confession may be taken into consideration against such other person as well as against himself, because the admission of his own guilt operates as a sort of sanction, which, to some extent, takes the place of the sanction of an oath and so affords some guarantee that the whole statement was a true one. There was a caveat to this proposition. This evidence was a very weak piece of evidence and the confession may be true so far
as its maker was concerned, but may be false in so far as it affects others, the judge added.

The judge said one important requirement in order to apply this provision was that there should be a joint trial of the accused. If this requirement was not satisfied, the confession of the co-accused cannot be used in terms of section 30 of the Evidence Act. In the present case, admittedly the trial of A-4 was already over along with three other accused persons and they have been convicted by the trial court, confirmed by this court and the case was now pending before the Supreme Court. Therefore, on the face of it the requirement of section 30 of the Evidence Act was not satisfied in this case. Therefore the confession of A-4 cannot be used against this petitioner, the judge added.