- (1.) The short question that falls for determination in this appeal by special leave is whether the Courts below were justified in convicting the appellant for the offence of murder punishable under Section 302 IPC and in awarding imprisonment for life to him on the basis of an extra-judicial confession that he is alleged to have made before the Village Administrative Officer, Veriappur, (VAO for short). The extra judicial confession was, according to the prosecution, reduced to writing by the VAO and found sufficient by the trial Court as also by the High Court to hold the appellant guilty of having committed the offence with which he was charged. That finding and the consequent orders recorded by the Courts below have been assailed by learned counsel for the appellant who argued that the making of the confessional statement was, in the facts and circumstances of the case, not only improbable but wholly unsupported and uncorroborated by any independent evidence. Relying upon several decisions of this Court, it was argued that the extra judicial confession was by its very nature a weak type of evidence which ought to be corroborated by independent evidence in order to support a conviction of the maker of the confession. No such corroboration was, according to Ms. Mahalakshmi Pavani forthcoming in the instant case, which rendered the conviction and order of sentence passed by the Courts below unsustainable in law.
(2.) Before we refer to the evidence adduced by the prosecution at the trial in support of the charge framed against the appellant we may briefly recapitulate the factual matrix in which the offence is alleged to have been committed. According to the prosecution the appellant is a resident of Veriappur village of Annamalaiputhur village within the police station limits of Oddanchatram. He got married to one Yuvarani nearly two years before the incident. Within about 10 months of the marriage, the couple was blessed with a female child whom they named Savitha. The prosecution case is that the accused-appellant had developed some suspicion about the birth of the child though it is not very clear whether the suspicion was about the paternity of the child or the child being unlucky for the family. Be that as it may, around the time the incident occurred the appellant is said to have visited his village to perform the mundan ceremony of the child who was just about 10 months old. His parents were not, however, much excited about the mundan ceremony to be followed by the feast. They are alleged to have told the appellant that ever since the child was born, the family was facing problems. The prosecution version further is that since the appellant had already developed a suspicion about the child, he at about 11.00 a.m. on 18th March, 2005 picked up the child and threw her in a well resulting in the child's death by drowning. After throwing the child into the well the appellant is alleged to have gone to PW-5 Sakthivel, Vice President of Veripur Panchayat Board, and told him that he had thrown his daughter into the well. PW-5 Sakthivel is said to have advised the appellant to go to PW-1 S.K. Natarajan, Village Administrative Officer of Veriappur. The appellant accordingly went to PW-1 S.K. Natarajan and narrated the incident to him. PW-1 S.K. Natarajan is alleged to have recorded the statement made by the appellant and taken the appellant along with him to the police station where the former lodged the first information report regarding the incident and produced the extra judicial confession made by the appellant before the police.
(3.) A case was in the above backdrop registered in the police station at Amblikkai under Section 302 IPC and investigation started in the course whereof the dead body of the child was subjected to post-mortem which revealed that the child had died because of drowning. A charge sheet was eventually laid by the police against the appellant for committing the murder of his daughter to which charge the appellant pleaded not guilty resulting in his trial before the Court of Sessions at Dindigul.;