FIR lodged by accused cannot be relied as evidence if it contains confession: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that a first information report (FIR) lodged by an accused person, if it contains a confession, cannot be relied upon as evidence against the accused in trial [Narayan Yadav vs State of Chattisgarh]

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan ruled that such FIRs are hit by Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act (confession to police officer) and cannot be used even for corroboration purposes.

The Court was deciding a criminal appeal filed by one Narayan Yadav, who had been convicted by a trial court under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the murder of his employer.

The conviction was later modified by the Chhattisgarh High Court to Section 304 Part I (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

However, the Supreme Court held that the High Court had erroneously relied on the FIR lodged by Yadav himself, a document the Court found to be confessional in nature and legally inadmissible.

"The FIR lodged by the appellant amounts to a confession, and any confession made by an accused before the police is hit by Section 25 of the Act of 1872," the Court held.

The bench took particular exception to the High Court having matched the medical evidence in the post-mortem report with the contents of Yadav’s FIR.

“There was no question at all for the High Court to seek corroboration of the medical evidence on record with the confessional part of the FIR lodged by the appellant,” the Court said.

The Bench made it clear that a statement in an FIR can only be used to contradict or corroborate its maker if they step into the witness box. When the FIR is filed by an accused and it contains confessional material, it is completely barred under Section 25.

"an FIR of a confessional nature made by an accused person is inadmissible in evidence against him, except to the extent that it shows he made a statement soon after the offence, thereby identifying him as the maker of the report, which is admissible as evidence of his conduct under Section 8 of the Act of 1872,” the judgment stated.

Additionally, any information that leads to the discovery of a fact may be admissible under Section 27 but only to that limited extent.

“However, a non-confessional FIR is admissible against the accused as an admission under Section 21 of the Act of 1872 and is relevant,” the Court clarified.

The Bench rejected the State’s argument that the FIR could still be used under Section 8 due to the appellant’s conduct in taking police to the scene of the crime.

The found that the prosecution had failed to establish any legally admissible discovery statement under Section 27 and noted that even the exact statement made by the accused leading to recovery, had not been deposed to by any witness.

“None of them have specifically deposed to the exact statement allegedly made by the appellant, which purportedly led to the discovery of a fact relevant under Section 27 of the Act of 1872,” the Court observed.

The Court also expressed concern that the conviction had been allowed to stand largely on the basis of the post-mortem report despite the absence of admissible supporting evidence.

“An accused cannot be held guilty of the offence of murder solely on the basis of medical evidence on record,” the judgment said.

It emphasized that the testimony of a medical expert “is of an advisory character” and cannot be the sole basis for conviction.

In this case, most of the panch witnesses had turned hostile and the investigating officer had not proved the panchnamas in accordance with law. The Court held that there was no discovery of fact that could be legally relied upon and thus. no evidence left to sustain the conviction.

Finding that the High Court had erroneously relied on a barred confessional FIR, and that no other legally admissible evidence remained to link the accused to the offence, the Court set aside the conviction entirely.

“In the overall view of the matter, we are convinced that the impugned judgment passed by the High Court of Chhattisgarh... is not sustainable in law,” the Court concluded, acquitting the appellant of all charges.

The court registry was directed to circulate copies of the judgment to all High Courts.

Advocate Manjeet Chawla appeared for the appellant-accused while advocate Sugandha Jain appeared for the State.

[Read Judgment]