DEVI RAM PATT RAM Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS matter has been referred to us by Grover J. , because it raised an important question regarding the interpretation to be placed on the provisions of section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act. The main matter for our consideration is whether a confessional statement made by a person, which leads to the discovery of some fresh material, can be proved against that person when he is subsequently accused of an offence. At the time he made the confessional statement he was neither an accused person nor was he in police custody.

(2.) THE facts briefly are that on the 28th of June 1958 the petitioner, Devi Ram, who is a peon of the Delhi Corporation, was entrusted with a sum of money (Rs. 10,249. 53np) which he had to deposit in the Zonal Officer, Shadara. The petitioner set out on his bicycle on the morning of the 28th June and later at 1 p. m. he made a report to the police that he had been waylaid by three persons who had thrown him down from his bicycle, robbed him of the bag containing the sum of money entrusted to him and had also inflicted a knife injury on his hand. The petitioner was examined by a doctor who found who simple injuries on his person. Both of them were incised wounds skin deep. One of them was one inch long and the other one was only 1/4" long. One injury was on the palm of the left hand and the other on the left thing. There was a corresponding cut or his trousers. The police took up the investigation of the case, and on the morning of the 29th petitioner is alleged to have made a statement that he had handed over the money to this co-villager, Raghbir Singh. In pursuance of this statement the petitioner was taken to the village and there he asked Raghbir Singh to produce the bag which he had entrusted to him the previous evening. Raghbir Singh brought out the bag, and from this bag almost the entire sum of money, which had been entrusted to the petitioner, was recovered. The petitioner was then sent up to stand his trial upon a charge under section 409, Indian Penal Code. The evidence against him consisted of- (1) his own confessional statement which led to the recovery of almost the entire embezzled money from Reghbir Sing; (2) The statement of Raghbir Singh that the bag containing the money had been entrusted to him by the petitioner on the day of occurrence; 3. the recovery of the money itself; and 4. the circumstance that the report made by him was obviously false, because the injuries, which he sustained, were not explained by the sort of assault which he alleged was made upon him.

(3.) UPON this evidence the trail Court and the learned Sessions Judge, who heard the appeal, found the petitioner guilty. He moved this Court on the revision side and it was argued on his behalf that the statement, which he made to the police officer on the 29th morning, was inadmissible in evidence, because at the time he made the statement he was not an accused person, nor was he in police custody, and, therefore, in terms, section 27, Indian Evidence Act, could not apply to his case.