Can Police Register FIR Based On Confession Statement Of Accused? What Is Its Evidentiary Value?

Section 154 of The Code of Criminal Procedure Code deals with registration of First Information Report (though the Section does not use the word 'First Information Report or FIR).It says that every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, if given orally to an officer in charge of a police station, shall be reduced to writing by him or under his direction, and be read Over to the informant; and every such information, whether given in writing or reduced to writing as aforesaid, shall be signed by the person giving it, and the substance thereof shall be entered in a book to be kept by such officer in such form as the State Government may prescribe in this behalf. The Section further says an Officer in charge of a police station can register every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence irrespective of the status of the informant. The Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in the Lalita Kumari Case held that registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code if the information discloses commission of a cognizable offence. So police can register the FIR based on the information given by any person including an accused irrespective of whether his statement amounts to confession or not. Evidentiary Value of FIR FIR as such is not substantive evidence. It may be used to corroborate the informant under S.157 of the Evidence Act or to contradict him under S.145 of the Act, if the informant is called as a witness. Evidentiary Value of Confessional FIR The Supreme Court had examined the question of evidentiary of value of a confessional FIR in Aghnoo Nagesia v. State of Bihar [AIR 1966 SC 119] In the above case Aghnoo Nagesia was charged under S.302 of the Indian Penal Code for murdering his aunt Ratni, her daughter, Chamin, her son inlaw. Somra and Dilu, son of Somra. The prosecution case was that on August 11, 1963 between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. the appellant murdered Somra in a forest known as Dungijharan Hills and later Chamin in Kesari Garha field and then Ratni and Dilu in the house of Ratni at village Jamtoli. The first information was lodged by accused himself at police station Palkot. The information was reduced to writing by the officer in charge. Sub Inspector and Accused affixed his left thumb impression on the report. The Sub Inspector immediately arrested him. The next day, the Sub Inspector in the company of the accused went to the house of Ratni, where he pointed out the dead bodies of Ratni and Dilu and also a place in the orchard of Ratni covered with bushes and grass, where he had concealed a tangi. He then took the Sub Inspector and witnesses to Kasiari garha khet and pointed out the dead body of Chamin lying in a ditch covered with Ghunghu. On behalf of the accused, it was contended that the entire statement is a confession made to a police officer and is not provable against the appellant, having regard to S.25 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. On behalf of the prosecution it is contended that S.25 protects only those portions of the statement which disclose the killings by the appellant and the rest of the statement is not protected by S.25. Law relating to confessions in Evidence Act. The Indian Evidence Act does not define "confession". For a long time, the Courts in India adopted the definition of "confession" given in Art. 22 of Stephen's Digest of the Law of Evidence. According to that definition a confession is an admission made at any time by a person charged with crime, stating or suggesting the inference that he committed that crime. This definition was discarded by the Judicial Committee in Pakala Narayanaswami v. Emperor, 66 Ind App 66 at p. 81: (AIR 1939 PC 47 at p. 52). Lord Atkin observed: ".......no statement that contains self exculpatory matter can amount to confession, if the exculpatory statement is of some fact which if true would negative the offence alleged to be confessed. Moreover, 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, e.g., an admission that the accused is the owner of and was in recent possession of the knife or revolver which caused a death with no explanation of any other man's possession." These observations received the approval of this Court in Palvinder Kaur v. State of Punjab (1), 1953 SCR 94 at p. 104; (AIR 1952 SC 354 at p. 357). In State of U.P. v. Deoman Upadhyaya, 1961 (1) SCR 14 at p. 21: (AIR 1960 SC 1125 at pp. 1128-1129). Shah, J., referred to a confession as a statement made by a person stating or suggesting the inference that he has committed a crime. A confession may be defined as an admission of the offence by a person charged with the offence. A statement which contains self exculpatory matter cannot amount to a confession, if the exculpatory statement is of some fact...

Can Police Register FIR Based On Confession Statement Of Accused? What Is Its Evidentiary Value?

M.A.Rashid

Police can register the FIR based on the information given by any person including an accused irrespective of whether his statement amounts to confession or not.

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