Extrajudicial confession

According to said witnesses, on 17.06.2013, they along with another witness (given up) were present in the drawing room of one of the witnesses and at about 08.00 pm the accused came there on motorcycle in perplexed condition and stated before them that due to the immoral activities of his wife, he along with the co-accused murdered her

Accused requested the witnesses to get pardon from father of deceased as they were having good relations with him

Admittedly, both the said witnesses were not relatives of father of deceased and had no authority or any status in the vicinity to get pardon from him in favour of the accused

As per statements of said witnesses, the accused was empty handed, remained present in the drawing room for about one hour whereas the police station was located at a distance of two kilometers and one of the witnesses had a cell phone, even then they had not tried to apprehend the accused or even informed the concerned police, thus, the story narrated by said witnesses regarding extrajudicial confession was highly improbable and did not appeal to common sense

In this backdrop, the accused had no necessity to involve himself in an untraced occurrence involving capital punishment

Such facts certainly raised serious doubt about the veracity of witnesses and their testimonies were not upto the mark to place any reliance upon them

Appeal against conviction was accordingly allowed.

Evidence of extra judicial confession is inherently weak and does not present a brighter picture either.

Extreme caution must be exercised in relying upon extra-judicial confession, which must be supported by some unimpeachable corroborative evidence in order to bring home a conviction.

Extra-judicial confession is a weak type of evidence.