Extra-judicial Confession Can Be Admissible As Proof: Sc

The Supreme Court has said that an extra-judicial confession of a crime is admissible as evidence provided the statement recorded inspires confidence and is corroborated. A bench of Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said that though an extra-judicial confession is a weak evidence by itself, a court of law can rely on it if the statement was made by the suspect voluntarily and truthfully. “Wherever the court, upon due appreciation of the entire prosecution evidence, intends to base a conviction on an extra-judicial confession, it must ensure that the same inspires confidence and is corroborated by other prosecution evidence,” Justice Kumar observed in the judgment he wrote for the Bench. But the court added a rider, saying, “If, however, an extra-judicial confession suffers from material discrepancies or inherent improbabilities and does not appear to be cogent as per the prosecution version, it may be difficult for the court to base a conviction on such a confession.”