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TMI Blog1994 (10) TMI 319X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s 302/34 IPC but acquitted them of the charge under Sections 201/34 IPC. As regards the charges under Sections 364/34 IPC and Section 379 IPC the Court recorded a finding that those were redundant in the facts and circumstances of the case and, as such, did not pass any formal order of conviction and sentence in respect of the same. For the conviction under Sections 302/34 IPC the two appellants were sentenced to death and the other two to imprisonment for life. The reference made to the High Court under Section 366 CrPC for confirmation of the sentence of death and the appeal preferred by the appellants were heard together and by the impugned judgment the High Court while upholding the conviction of the two appellants commuted their senten ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e, killed them and removed their dead bodies to the nearby water tank. 4.The defence of the appellants, as it can be gathered from the trend of their cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses and the statements made by them in their examination under Section 313 CrPC, was one of innocence and of false implication due to political rivalry. 5.That the dead bodies of the two victims were found lying on Adahata Road in the early morning of 31-3-1987 and that they met with their death owing to murderous assault stand conclusively proved by overwhelming and unimpeachable evidence on record. In fact, this part of the prosecution case was not seriously challenged by the defence. While the evidence of Sunil Bose (PW 18) and Ranjit Kumar B ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... al court and the High Court can be sustained or not. 7.To bring home the accusations leveled against the appellants and the other accused, the prosecution examined Shambhu Debnath (PW 4) and Sunil Karmakar (PW 8) the rickshaw puller, to give an ocular version of the incident, but they turned hostile. In such circumstances and in absence of any other witness to the actual commission of the crime, the prosecution rested its case upon two retracted judicial confessions of the appellant Mahabir and Amit @ Pagla and certain discoveries made pursuant to the statements of the two appellants. 8.A confession, before it can be acted upon, must be established to have been voluntarily made and is true. As regards the evidentiary value of a confes ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... v. State of Mp3 with the following words: (SCR p. 530) The proper way to approach a case of this kind is, first, to marshal the evidence against the accused excluding the confession altogether from consideration and see whether, if it is believed, a conviction could safely be based on it. If it is capable of belief independently of the confession, then of course it is not necessary to call the confession in aid, But cases may arise where the judge is not prepared to act on the other evidence as it stands even though, if believed, it would be sufficient to sustain a conviction. In such an event the judge may call in aid the confession and use it to lend assurance to the other evidence and thus fortify himself in believing what without the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e his associates killed Tapan and (v) all of them then carried the dead bodies to dump them near a tank, fitted in with the evidence adduced by the witnesses to the inquest and the doctor who field the postmortem examination. The above reasons found favour with the High Court and meets our approval too. 14. Record indicates that Mahabir retracted the confession by filing an application before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Barrackpore on 12-2-1988 wherein he stated that he made it according to the dictates of the CID Officer as he threatened him with dire consequences. The trial court considered the allegations in the light of the materials on record and probabilities and found them to be baseless. This finding also, in our view, is unex ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... word nor call in aid the confession of the co-accusedAmit. 16.Coming now to the case of other appellant, namely, Shiba @ Bijoy KrishnaDutta we find that both the trial court and the High Court have relied upon the confessional statements of Amit and Mahabir and discovery of a silver ring belonging to Pabitra on 20-9-1987 from an ash dump pursuant to his statement made while in police custody. Since, to start with, the confessions of the co-accused namely Mahabir and Amit have to be ignored as against Shiba and can be pressed into service only to lend assurance to other substantive and reliable evidence, we proceed to consider the evidence relating to the discovery of the ring. The admissible part of the statement of Shiba, pursuant to wh ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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