LI Network
Published on: 4 August 2023 at 13:10 IST
The Supreme Court has emphasized that extra-judicial confessions cannot be considered credible solely because they appear in newspaper reports for public consumption.
The Court expressed surprise over the Karnataka High Court’s decision to uphold a murder conviction based on such newspaper reports, stating that they should be treated as secondary evidence at best.
The case in question, Dinesh BS v. State of Karnataka, involved the acquittal of two men who were previously sentenced to life imprisonment for a 1994 murder.
The trial court had initially found the accused not guilty, but in 2009, the High Court overturned the acquittal and handed down life sentences. In response, the two accused appealed to the Supreme Court, leading to the recent ruling.
The apex court highlighted that one of the accused’s conviction was primarily based on a story published in a Kannada newspaper.
The prosecution presented the reporter of the article as a witness, who claimed that the accused had confessed to him while in jail.
However, upon examination, the Court discovered that it was the concerned sub-editor, not the reporter, who had directly interacted with the accused. Surprisingly, the sub-editor was not brought in for testimony during the trial.
Furthermore, the reporter only spoke to other undertrial prisoners and claimed to have overheard the confession, which raised doubts about the accuracy and reliability of the information.
Regarding the other accused, the Court noted that he was not treated equally with others in a similar position during the trial. Additionally, there were inconsistencies in the testimony of a prosecution witness who claimed to have brought the deceased person to the hospital.
Taking all these factors into account, the Supreme Court allowed both appeals and acquitted the two men of the murder charges.
The two appellants were represented by Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, along with Advocates Pai Amit, NS Nappinai, and V Balaji. On the other hand, Additional Advocate General Nishant Patil represented the Karnataka government.
