ANWAR ALAM Vs. THE STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal preferred by the appellant Anwar Alam poses two questions for our consideration - -(i) as to whether a mere statement by a witness that the appellant had admitted his guilt as appears from the ordinary translation of could be treated as a full -fledged confession, and (ii) whether the finding of the dead body of deceased Firdosh Begum, the wife of the present appellant be sufficient enough a circumstance to fasten the guilt upon the appellant as regards its proof. Before we answer the two questions, we want to pointout that undisputedly deceased Firdosh Begum was married to the appellant, about four years prior to 15.12.2004, when she died an unnatural death, probably induced by some external force, strangulating her to death. The informant P.W. 7 who happened to be the father of deceased Firdosh Begum stated that he got an information about the illness of his daughter and came to the house of the appellant to find the dead body of his daughter lying in the Angan (courtyard) where villagers had apprehended the appellant and had made him to sit and to whom appellant confessed his guilt.

(2.) Usual lodging of the report ultimately ended in the submission of the charge -sheet which put the appellant on trial in Sessions Trial No. 327 of 2005 before the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Kishanganj and that ended in the impugned judgment of conviction dated 20.6.2005. The appellant after being heard under Sec. 235 Cr.P.C. was directed to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life.

(3.) We to refer : AIR 1939 Privy Council 47, Pakala Narayana Swami vs. Emperor in which their Lordships were construing the word "confession" which appeared in the Evidence Act in Ss. 24 to 30 and were lying down that the word "confession" as used in Evidence Act cannot be construed as meaning a statement by an accused "suggesting the inference that he committed" the crime. A confession must either admit in terms the offence, or at any rate substantially all the facts which constitute the offence. An admission of a gravely incriminating fact, even a conclusively incriminating fact, is not of itself a confession. A statement that contains self -exculpatory matter cannot amount to a confession, if the exculpatory statement is of some fact which if true would negative the offence alleged to be confessed.