Leading Supreme Court Judgment on S 27 of Evidence Act

The various requirements of the Section can be summed up as follows:

(1) The fact of which evidence is sought to be given must be relevant to the issue. It must be borne in mind that the provision has nothing to do with question of relevancy. The relevancy of the fact discovered must be established according to the prescriptions relating to relevancy of other evidence connecting it with the crime in order to make the fact discovered admissible.

(2) The fact must have been discovered.

(3) The discovery must have been in consequence of some information received from the accused and not by accused's own act.

(4) The persons giving the information must be accused of any offence.

(5) He must be in the custody of a police officer.

(6) The discovery of a fact in consequence of information received from an accused in custody must be deposed to.

(7) Thereupon only that portion of the information which relates distinctly or strictly to the fact discovered can be proved. The rest is inadmissible.

17. As observed in Palukuri Kotavva's case (supra) it can seldom happen that information leading to the discovery of a fact forms the foundation of the prosecution case. It is one link in the chain of proof and the other links must be forged in manner allowed by law. To similar effect was the view expressed in K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh and Anr. MANU/SC/0133/1962 : [1963]3SCR412 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Criminal Appeal No. 1105 of 1997

Decided On: 05.02.2004

Anter Singh Vs. State of Rajasthan

Hon'ble Judges/Coram:

Doraiswamy Raju and Dr. Arijit Pasayat, JJ.

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