Chhattisgarh High Court: The Conviction of Accused 1-appellant in a criminal case for offences punishable under Sections 302 and 201 read with Section 34 of IPC, was upheld by a Division Bench comprising of Sanjay Agrawal and R.C.S. Samant, JJ.
Accused 1 was found guilty of the above-mentioned offences and convicted by the trial court accordingly. The allegation against him was that he along with Accused 2 had murdered the deceased-his uncle, on account of some dispute. According to the prosecution, on enquiry by the villagers regarding whereabouts of the deceased, Accused 1 confessed that he had killed the deceased along with Accused 2 and buried the dead body in his field. Accused 1 denied the allegations and challenged the judgment and order passed by the trial court.
The question before the High Court was whether the accused could have been convicted on basis of the extra-judicial confession made by the accused. The Court perused the record and found that the fact of confession made by Accused 1 was corroborated by other evidence including witness statement, recovery of dead body, recovery of clothes, FSL report, opinion of the medical expert, etc. The Court was of the view that all the incriminating material on record collected by the prosecution against the accused, on being examined and scrutinized proves that the extra-judicial confession made by Accused 1 had evidentiary value to connect him with the crime in question. Further, the evidence of extra-judicial confession was sufficient, in light of the corroboration as mentioned hereinabove, to bring home the guilt of Accused 1.
Consequently, the judgment of the trial court convicting Accused 1 of the abovesaid offences was upheld and the appeal was dismissed. [Meher Singh Dugga v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2018 SCC OnLine Chh 364, decided on 24-03-2018]
