Confession

Confession, whether judicial or extra judicial, must be demonstrably voluntary, made out of absolute free will and without influence of any kind, whether a threat, inducement, promise or even hope etc.

Fundamental principle regarding admissibility and assessment of a confession, judicial or extra judicial, is that it ought to be genuinely voluntary and must have been made out of one's free will

Confession must have been given freely and without any coercion or influence in any form

Ordinarily no person confesses to commission of a crime because of its consequences and there is possibility that profound effects of being in custody and exposed to physical and psychological distress and trauma associated with investigation and custody a person's rational thinking generally gets impaired

Any innocent person may confess so as to free himself from extremely distressful conditions but in exceptional and rare cases, it cannot be ruled out that an accused may voluntarily confess his guilt because of genuine remorse or regret

It becomes an even more onerous task of the court when circumstances are such that there is a likelihood of accused being exposed to influence of a person in authority, such as being in custody of a police officer and confined in the lock up of a police station.

Conviction of an accused could be recorded on the basis of retracted judicial confession, if the same is proved voluntary, true and corroborated by other strong circumstances of the case

Mere denial of an accused from his confession in statement under S. 342, Cr.P.C., would not make his confessional statement inadmissible.

Judicial or extra-judicial confession could be made sole basis for conviction of an accused, if the court was satisfied and had believed that it was true and voluntary and was not obtained by torture, coercion or inducement.

Confession was circumstantial corroborative piece of evidence on which evidence conviction could not be based.

If the retracted judicial confession appeared to have been made voluntary, without any inducement, duress or coercion and was made with the object to state the truth

Even if there were some irregularities in recording of a confession it would not warrant disregarding of the same.

For accepting a confession, two essential requirements must be fulfilled, i.e. the confession was made voluntarily, it was based on true account of facts, leading to the crime and the same was proved at the trial.

In order to ascertain its truthfulness of confession, it was necessary to examine and compare the same with the rest of the prosecution evidence to exclude any possibility or probability of any doubt qua its true character

Until and unless the confessional statement appeared to have been recorded voluntarily, without duress, coercion and inducement, it could neither be taken into consideration nor could be made basis for awarding conviction to an accused.

In absence of independent corroboration retracted judicial confession would not suffice all by itself for recording or upholding the conviction of accused persons.

Confession recorded by accused could validly form the basis of his/her conviction, if the court was satisfied and believed that it was true, voluntary, was not obtained by torture, coercion or inducement and coherent with the facts and circumstances of the case

Even if such a confession was, later, retracted, it would not lose its evidentiary value, if the same qualified the said criteria.

Judicial and extra-judicial confession could be made sole basis for conviction of an accused, if the court was satisfied and had believed that it was true and voluntary and was not obtained by torture, coercion or inducement.

Confessional statement of one accused could not form sole basis for conviction of another accused as being a corroboratory piece of evidence it could not suffice itself to convict an accused on a capital charge.

Retracted confession is sufficient piece of evidence for conviction if it is found voluntary and is not obtained by coercion or inducement.

Confession is either to be accepted in toto or rejected as a whole.

Con-fessional statement which on one hand was exculpatory and on the other hand not corroborated and proved during trial was of no legal worth.

Two essential requirements must be fulfilled for accepting confession i.e. the confession was made voluntarily, it was based on true account of facts leading to the crime and the same was proved at trial.

Retracted confession, if corroborated by independent evidence of reliable nature, could be made basis for conviction on a capital charge, subject to thorough judicial scrutiny.

Retracted confession, if corroborated by independent evidence of reliable nature, could be made basis for conviction on a capital charge, but it must be subjected to thorough judicial scrutiny

For accepting a confession, two essential requirements must be fulfilled i.e. the confession was made voluntarily, it was based on true account of facts, leading to the crime and the same was proved at the trial.

Such confession was inadmissible in law.

In absence of independent corroboration, retracted judicial confession could not suffice by itself for recording or upholding the conviction.

Retracted confession was to be corroborated by some other independent evidence for recording conviction.

Extra-judicial confessions are generally those made by a party to or before a private individual which includes even a judicial officer in his private capacity or a Magistrate who is not especially empowered to record confessions under S. 164, Cr.P.C. or a Magistrate so empowered but receiving the confession at a stage when S. 164, Cr.P.C. does not apply

Confession made by an accused is irrelevant in a criminal proceedings if the confession appears to the Court to have been caused by any inducement, threat or promise, (i) having regard to the charge against the accused person, (ii) proceeding from a person in authority, and (iii) sufficient, in the opinion of the Court to give the accused person grounds which would appear to him reasonable for supposing that by making it he would gain any advantage or avoid any evil of a temporal nature in reference to the proceedings against him.

Where accused confesses his guilt but pleads not guilty during trial, then prosecution is bound to prove guilt beyond any shadow of doubt.

Questionnaire and certificate did not contain anything regarding the identity of accused like CNIC, identification marks or description of physical appearance

No identification parade was conducted in the presence of witnesses in order to confirm that the person making confession was actually the one who was roped in the case or anyone else

Confession, in circumstances was, held to have lost its evidentiary value and legal efficacy.

Confession recorded with a delay of four days after arrest, with no plausible explanation, cannot be made basis for recording conviction on a capital charge

Longer the custody of accused, weaker the evidentiary value of confession.

Principle.

Most important factors and required standards of confession enumerated.

Conviction of an accused could be recorded on the basis of retracted judicial confessional, if the same was proved voluntary, true and corroborated by other strong circumstances of the case

Mere denial of accused in statement under S.342, Cr.P.C. that confessional statement was not voluntary or that he/she has not made such statement would not make his/her confessional statement inadmissible.

Retracted confession, if corroborated by independent evidence of reliable nature, could be made basis for conviction on a capital charge, but it must be subject to thorough judicial scrutiny.

If confession was voluntary, it must also be established that it was true and for the purpose of establishing its truth it was necessary to examine the confession and compared same with the rest of the prosecution evidence and the probabilities of the case.

If the maker of confession would exonerate himself from important allegations then his such statement at the most could be termed as exculpatory confession, which could not be regarded as confession and had little value even against the maker.

Conviction could not be based on retracted conviction alone; in order to record conviction, it was imperative for the prosecution to bring on record corroborative piece of evidence.

Retracted judicial confession could be legally admissible and used against its maker in certain circumstance.

Accused can be convicted on the basis of retracted confession if the court finds it voluntary i.e. without threat or inducement

Object of such retracted confession must be to state the truth; assistance for which can be ascertained from (i) whether the confession appears truthful within the context of the prosecution case and (ii) whether there is any other evidence on record which tends to corroborate the truthfulness of the confession.

Evidence of extra judicial confession is a fragile piece of evidence and great care and caution has to be exercised in placing reliance on such a confession

Such confession is always looked at with doubt and suspicion due to ease with which it may be concocted

Legal worth of extra judicial confession was almost equal to naught, keeping in view nature, course of events, human behaviour, conduct and probabilities in ordinary course

Extra judicial confession could be taken as corroborative of charge if it, in first instance, rang true and then found support from other evidence of unimpeachable character

If other evidence lacked such attribution it had to be excluded from consideration

For awarding conviction on basis of extra judicial confession threefold proofs are required i.e., firstly, it was in fact made; secondly, that it was voluntarily made; and thirdly, it was true

Judicial or extra judicial confession could be made sole basis for conviction of an accused if court was satisfied and had believed that it was true and voluntary and was not obtained by torture, coercion or inducement.

Retracted judicial confession could be used against its maker in a capital case, provided that there was strong unimpeachable corroborative evidence from an independent source and that it was voluntary and truthful.

Retracted confession in absence of independent corroboration is never safe to uphold conviction.

Retracted judicial confession being legally admissible could be used against its maker in certain circumstances.

If retracted judicial confession appeared to have been made voluntarily, without any inducement, duress or coercion and was made with the object to state the truth, then some irregularities in recording of a confession would not warrant disregarding of the same.

Confession must either admit in terms the offence or at any rate substantially all the facts which constituted the offence

Admission of a gravely incriminating fact, even a conclusively incriminating fact, was not itself a confession

Statement containing self-exculpatory matter which, if true, would negate the matter or offence, could not amount to confession.

Recording confession at such belated stage when accused remained in police custody for about 5 days, such confession could not be true

Confession of accused was a circumstantial evidence against co-accused under Art. 43 of Qanun-e-Shahadat, 1984 which needed strong corroboration.

Retracted confession, if confidence inspiring can be made a ground for conviction of the accused, however, when the same appears to be untrue and involuntary then it would not be safe to solely rely on the confession for conviction of the accused without further corroboration through confidence inspiring circumstantial evidence.

Retracted confession, if corroborated by independent evidence of reliable nature, could be made basis for conviction on a capital charge, but it must be subject to thorough judicial scrutiny

For accepting a confession, two essential requirements must be fulfilled i.e. the confession was made voluntarily, it was based on true account of facts leading to the crime and the same was proved at the trial.

If a retracted confession stands proved from other un-challenged or proved circumstances, the same could be believed. [Para. 20 of the judgment]

Retracted confessional statement if not made voluntarily had no legal authenticity in the eyes of law.

Voluntariness of confession was doubted when recorded after unauthorised confinement of accused.

Confession made by accused could not be used as a substantive piece of evidence to make the same basis of conviction of co-accused

Confessional statement could be used as a corroborative piece of evidence, if corroborated by independent evidence.

If accused remained in police custody after his arrest till recording confessional statement, such confession would loose its value; longer the police custody of the accused, lesser the evidentiary value of his confession.

If the confession was corroborated by other facts and circumstances of the case, same would be relied upon.

Accused, in such process, was protected by procedural safeguards to ensure him a fair deal in order to contest charge without being disadvantageously placed or unduly embarrassed

Procedural safeguards, provided to accused were protection against self-incrimination

Accused could not be burdened with confessional statement in derogation of strict procedure provided under the law.

Confessional statement though retracted could be made basis for conviction if it was voluntary and supported by corroboratory evidence.