FATEHSING DAHYABHAI PARMAR Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is therefore clearly established that at three stages after the appellant surrendered himself into police custody he made statements containing substantially the same information with regard to the fact that he had concealed the dead body of the deceased Raijibhai in a drum containing rice in his house; and that brings us to the question of law raised by Mr. Shelat. For this purpose we may recapitulate the three statements attributed to the appellant which according to the findings given by us were made by the appellant. The first statement was:- His dead body I have packed in a bundle and have kept in a drum in my house and on the same (I) have kept rice. The second statement made before the P. S. T. in the morning was to the effect that he was willing to show the dead body of the deceased Raijibhai Somabhai which he had packed in a quilt and had concealed in a drum of rice in his house. The words in his house are not to be found in the English memorandum of evidence of the P. S. 1. at Exh. 24. But they are to be found in the Gujarati record of the evidence of that witness. The third statement is to be found in the Panchnama Exh. 11 the contents of which are sworn to be correct by the Panch witness Akbarali Yasinmiya Exh. 10. That statement is in Gujarati and reads:- ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** When translated it would read:- I have wrapped the dead body in Dhoti and quilt packed it in a bundle (and have) kept (it) in an iron drum containing rice and having filled (the drum with) rice the lid is fitted with dung which drum would show and would also point out voluntarily the dead body in it.

(2.) The information that the dead body was concealed in a drum containing rice in the house of the appellant contained in these three different statements made by the appellant at different times is substantially the same. The contention however is that before making of the second and the third statements the fact that the dead body was concealed by the appellant in a drum in his house was already known to the police as a result of the first statement. Therefore runs the argument the second and the third statements are not admissible in evidence. It is this question of law which we are called upon to decide in this case. It has become necessary for us to decide this question because as a corollary to the above argument it was urged that the recovery of the dead body was the consequence of the third statement only and therefore neither the first nor the second statement was admissible in evidence. This argument is based on sec. 27 of the Indian Evidence Act which may be reproduced:-

(3.) In a decision reported as In re Chenna Reddi A.I.R. 1940 Madras 710 the statement made by the accused in the presence of the Panchas was excluded from evidence precisely on the ground that that was not the first statement made by the accused. It was observed with regard to an earlier statement that:- A statement had been made to the police which P. W. 20 had thought it wise to get repeated in the presence of Panchayat dars. Having made these observations the High Court said It is the first statement of the accused to whomsoever made that leads to the discovery of the fact if a fact is discovered.. Both these cases of the Madras High Court proceed on the footing that first and the subsequent statements are separate informations.