- (1.) Only the appellant No. 1, in the appeal before the Tribunal, that is, Raj Kumar Damani is before me. He has challenged the order-imposing penalty upon him.
(2.) The impugned order of the Appellate Tribunal imposing penalty on the petitioner for violation of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 is dated 19th March, 2007.
(3.) In my opinion, the offending part is paragraph 7 of the order: There is nothing on record from which it can be gathered that inducement, torture, duress etc. has been practiced upon the witness by the officials of the Enforcement Directorate. In absence of any proof of torture, duress etc. inclupatory statement given by the appellant corroborated with sufficient documentary and attended substantial evidence, is acceptable as true. The retracted confessional statements of the appellant are fully corroborated by seized documents and other evidence which are important factors to prove the charges against the appellant. The retracted confessional statement may also constitute substantial evidence when it is corroborated in material parts as it has been observed by the Supreme Court in K.I. Pavunny v. Assistant Collector (HQ), Central Excise Collectorate, Cochin, 1997 3 SCC 721 that retracted confessional statement may be sufficient ground for the conviction of the offender provided there is sufficient corroborarion to prove the charge against the offender : It would thus be seen that there is no prohibition under the Evidence Act to rely upon the retracted confession to prove the prosecution case or to make the same basis for conviction of the accused. Practice and prudence require that the court could examine the evidence adduced by the prosecution to find out whether there are any other facts and circumstances to corroborate the retracted confession. It is not necessary that there should be corroborarion from independent evidence adduced by the prosecution to corroborate each detail contained in the confessional statement. The court is required to examine whether the confessional statement is voluntary; in other words, whether it was not obtained by threat, duress or promise. If court is satisfied from the evidence that it was voluntary, then it is required to examine whether the statement is true. If the court on examination of the evidence finds that the retracted confession is true, that part of the inculpatory portion could be relied upon to base the conviction. However, prudence and practice require that court would seek assurance getting corroboration from other evidence adduced by the prosecution.;