Published on: October 10, 2023 at 14:05 IST
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: Manoj Kumar Soni V. State of M.P., (2023)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that the evidentiary value of disclosure statements under Section 27 Indian Evidence Act 1872 made by the accused himself has to be well-established. It is held that the provided information must be directly relevant to the discovered fact, including details about the physical object, its place of origin, and the accused person’s awareness of these aspects. Except in cases in which the possession, or concealment, of an object constitutes the gist of the offence charged, it can seldom happen that information relating to the discovery of a fact forms the foundation of the prosecution case. It is only one link in the chain of proof, and the other links must be forged in manner allowed by law.
26. Coming to the case at hand, there is not a single iota of evidence except the disclosure statements of Manoj and the co-accused, which supposedly led the I.O. to the recovery of the stolen articles from Manoj and Rs. 3,000.00 from Kallu. At this stage, we must hold that admissibility and credibility are two distinct aspects and the latter is really a matter of evaluation of other available evidence.
The statements of police witnesses would have been acceptable, had they supported the prosecution case, and if any other credible evidence were brought on record. While the recoveries made by the I.O. under Section 27, Evidence Act upon the disclosure statements by Manoj, Kallu and the other co-accused could be held to have led to discovery of facts and may be admissible, the same cannot be held to be credible in view of the other evidence available on record.
31. It is clear as crystal that the sole connecting evidence against Manoj and Kallu was the recovery based on their disclosure statements, along with those of the other co-accused but this evidence, in our opinion, is not sufficient to qualify as “fact … discovered” within the meaning of Section 27. Having regard to such nature of evidence, we view the same as wholly untrustworthy.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra
