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PETITIONER:

PALVINDER KAUR

Vs.

RESPONDENT:

THE STATE OF PUNJAB(RUP SINGH-Caveator)

DATE OF JUDGMENT:

22/10/1952

BENCH:

MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND

BENCH:

MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND

AIYAR, N. CHANDRASEKHARA

BHAGWATI, NATWARLAL H.

CITATION:

1952 AIR 354 1952 SCR 94

CITATOR INFO :

A 1960 SC 409 (8)

RF 1965 SC1413 (5,13)

R 1966 SC 119 (12)

F 1968 SC 829 (6)

D 1969 SC 422 (19,21)

R 1972 SC 66 (12,13)

D 1975 SC1925 (42,43,44)

F 1976 SC1167 (15)

RF 1976 SC1797 (6)

R 1979 SC 154 (42)

R 1979 SC 826 (22)

R 1990 SC 79 (19)

ACT:

Criminal trial-Circumstantial evidence-Duty of courts to

safeguard themselves against basing decision suspicions-

ConfesSion'-Must be accepted or rejected as a whole-Self

exculpatory statement containing admission of incriminating

facts-Admission of incriminating portion as true rejecting

exculpatory portion as false -Legality-Indian Penal Code,

1860, s. 201-Essential ingredients of offence.

HEADNOTE:

In eases depending circumstantial evidence courts should

safeguard themselves against the danger of basing _their

conclusions suspicions howsoever strong.

Rex V. Hodge (1838) 2 Lew. 227, and Nargundkar v.

State of Madhya Pradesh (1952) S.C.R. 1091 referred to,

95

To establish a charge under s. 201, Indian Penal Code, it is

essential to prove that an offence has been committed (mere

suspicion that it has been committed is not sufficient);

that the accused knew or had reason to believe that such

offence had been committed ; and that with the requisite

knowledge and with the intent to screen the offender from

legal punishment the accused caused the evidence thereof to

disappear or gave false information respecting such offence

knowing or having reason to believe the same to be, false.

Where the evidence showed that a person had died, that his

body was found in &,trunk and was discovered in a well and

that the accused took part in the disposal of the body but

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there was no evidence to show the cause of his death or the

manner or circumstances in which it came about: Held, that

the accused could not be convicted for an offence under s.

201.

A statement that contains self exculpatory matter cannot

amount to a confession, if the exculpatory matter is of some

fact, which if true would negative the offence alleged to be

confessed. A confession must either admit in terms the

offence or at any rate substantially all the facts that

constitute the offence.

Narayanaswami v. Emperor (1939) 66 I.A. 66, referred to.

It is a well accepted rule regarding the use of confessions

and admissions that these must either be accepted as a whole

or rejected as a whole and that the court is not competent

to accept only the inculpatory part while rejecting the

exculpatory part as inherently incredible.

Emperor v. Balmukand (1930) I.L.R. 52 All. 1011, followed.

Where the statement made by the accused contained an

admission that she had placed the dead body of her husband

in a trunk and bad carried it in a jeep and thrown it into a

well, but with regard to the cause of the death the

statement made by her was that her husband bad accidently

taken a poisonous substance which was meant for washing

photos erroneously thinking it to be a medicine: Held, the

statement read as a whole was exculpatory in character and

the whole statement was inadmissible in evidence and the

High Court acted erroneously in accepting the former part of

it and rejecting the latter part as false.

Judgment of the High Court of Punjab reversed.

JUDGMENT:

CRIMINAL APPELLATE, JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No. 41 of

1952. Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order

dated the 3rd October,, 1951, of the High Court of

Judicature for the State of Punjab at Simla (Bhandari and

Soni-JJ in Criminal Appeal No. 86 of 1961, arising out of

the Judgment and Order dated the, 31st January, 1951, of the

Court of the Sessions Judge, Ambala, in Case No. 23 of'1950

and Trial No. 2 of 1951,

96

Jai GopalSethi (B. L. Kohli with him) for the Appellant.

H.S. Gujral, for the respondent. Bhagat Singh Chawla, for

the Caveator.

1952. October 22. The judgment 0f the Court was delivered

by

MAHAJAN J.-Palvinder Kaur,was tried for offences under

sections 302 and 201, Indian Penal Code, in connection with

the murder of her husband, Jaspal Singh. She was convicted

by -the Sessions Judge under section, 302 and sentenced to

transportation for life. No verdict was recorded regarding

the charge under section 201, Indian Penal Code. appeal

to the High Court she was acquitted of the charge of murder,

but was convicted under section 201, Indian Penal Code, and

sentenced to seven years' rigorous Imprisonment. Her appeal

by special leave is now before us.

Jaspal Singh, deceased, was the son of the Chief of

Bhareli (Punjab). He was married to Palvinder Kaur a few

years ago and they had two children. The. husband and wife

were living together in Bhareli house, Ambala. It is said

that Jaspal's relations with his father and grandfather,

were not very cordial and the two elders thought that

Palvinder Kaur was responsible, for this. It is also said

that Jaspal lived the allowance he got from his father and

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supplemented his income by selling milk and eggs and by

doing some odd jobs. Mohinderpal Singh (a fugitive from

justice) who is related to the appellant and was employed as

a storekeeper in Baldevnagar Camp, Ambala, used occasionally

to reside in Bhareli house. It is suggested that he had

started a liaison with Palvinder.

The prosecution case is that Sardar Jaspal was

administered potassium cyanide poison by the appellant and

Mohinderpal the afternoon of the 6th February, 1950. The

dead body was then put into a large trunk and kept in one of

the rooms in the house in Ambala city. About ten days later

i.e., the

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16th February, 1950, Mohinderpal during the absence

of the appellant, removed the trunk from the house in a jeep

when he came there with Amrik Singh and Kartar Singh (P.

Ws.), two watermen of the Baldevnagar Camp. The trunk was

then taken to Baldevnagar Camp and was kept in a store room

there. Three days later, the 19th February, 1950,

Mohinderpal accompanied by Palvinder and a domestic servant,

Trilok Chand (P. W. 27), took the trunk a few-miles the'

road leading to Rajpura, got to a katcha road and in the

vicinity of village Chhat took the jeep to a well a mound

and threw, the box into it. The jeep was taken to a

gurdwara where it was washed.

After the disappearance of the deceased, his father

made enquiries from Mohinderpal regarding the' whereabouts

of his missing son. Mohinderpal made various false

statements to him. the 8th March, 1950, the father

advertised in the "Daily Milap" begging his son to return

home as soon as possible as the condition of his wife and

children and parents had become miserable owing to his

absence.

On the 10th March, 1950, i.e., a, month and ten days

after the alleged murder and 19 days after the trunk was

thrown into the well, obnoxious smell was coming out of the

well, and the matter being reported to the lambardars of'

village Chhat, the trunk was taken out. The matter was

reported to the police and Sardar Banta Singh, Sub-Inspector

of Police, the 11th March arrived at the scene and

prepared the inquest report and sent for the doctor. The

postmortem examination was performed the spot the next

day. No photograph of the body was taken and it was allowed

to be cremated. After more than two and a half months,

the 28th April, 1950 th -first information report was lodged

against the appellant and Mohinderpal and the26th June a

challan was presented in the court of the committing

magistrate Mohinderpal was not traceable and the case Was

started against the appellant alone,

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There is no direct evidence to establish that the appellant

or Mohinderpal or both of them administered potassium

cyanide to Jaspal and the evidence regarding the murder is

purely circumstantial. The learned Sessions Judge took the

view that the circumstantial evidence in the case was

incompatible with the innocence of the accused, and held

that the case against the appellant was proved beyond any

reasonable doubt. The High Court appeal arrived at a

different conclusion. It held that though the body found

from the well was not capable of identification, the clothes

recovered from the trunk and found the body proved that it

was the body of Jaspal. It further held that the cause of

death could not be ascertained from the medical evidence

given in the case. The -evidence the question of the

identity of the dead body consisted of the statement of

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constable Lachhman 'Singh, of the clothes and other'

articles recovered from inside the trunk and of an alleged

confession of the accused. As regards the first piece of

evidence the High Court expressed the following opinion:

"There is in our opinion considerable force in the

contention that not only are foot constable Lachhman Singh

and Assistant Sub-Inspector Banta Singh testifying to the

facts which are false to their knowledge but that the

-prosecution are responsible for deliberately introducing a

false witness and for asking the other witnesses to support

the story narrated by Lachhman Singh that he identified the

body to be that of Jaspal Singh the 11th March and

communicate the information to the father of the deceased

the following day.)'

As regards the extra-judicial confessions alleged to. have

been made to Sardar Rup Singh and Sardar Balwant Singh,

father and grandfather of the deceased, they were held

inadmissible and unreliable. The confession made by

Palvinder to the magistrate, the 15th April, 1950, was

however used in evidence against her the following

reasoning:

"It is true that strictly speaking exculpatory statements

in which the prisoner denies her guilt cannot

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be regarded as confessions, but these statements are often

used as circumstantial evidence of guilty consciousness by

showing them to be false and fabricated."

It was also found that though Palvinder might have desired

to continue her illicit intrigue with Mohinderpal she may

not have desired to sacrifice her wealth and- position at

the altar of love. She may have had' a motive to kill her

husband but a stronger motive to preserve her own position

as the wife of a prospective chief of Bhareli and that in

this situation it was by no means impossible that the murder

was committed by Mohinderpal alone without the consent and

knowledge of Palvinder, and that though a strong suspicion

attached to Palvinder, it was impossible to state with

confidence that poison was administered by her. Therefore

it was not possible to convict her under section 302, Indian

Penal Code.

Concerning the charge under section 201, Indian Penal Code,

the High Court held that the most important piece of

evidence in support of the charge was the confession which

Palvinder made the 15th April, 1950, and this confession,

though retracted, was corroborated this point by

independent evidence and established the charge.

The judgment of the High Court was impugned before us a

large number of grounds. Inter alia, it was contended that

in examining Palvinder Kaur at great length the High Court

contravened the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure

and that the Full Bench decision of the High Court in Dhara

Singh's case(1) was wrong in law, that the alleged

confession of the appellant being an. exculpatory statement,

the same was inadmissible in evidence and could not be used

as evidence against her, that it had been contradicted in

most material particulars by the prosecution evidence itself

and was false and that in any case it could not be used

piecemeal; that the offences under sections 302/34 and 201,

Indian Penal Code, being distinct offences committed at two

different times and being

(1) (I952) 54 P.L.R, 58,

100

separate transactions, the appellant having been

convicted of the offence under section 302, Indian Penal

Code, only by the Session Judge, the High Court had no

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jurisdiction when acquitting her of that offence to, convict

her under section 201 of the same Code; that the statements

of Mohinderpal to 'various witnesses land his conduct were

not relevant against the appellant; that Karamchand and Mst.

Lachhmi were in the nature of accomplices and the High Court

erred in relying their testimony without any corrobora-

tion; that the High Court having disbelieved eight of the

witnesses of the prosecution and having held that they were

falsely introduced into the case, the investigation being

extremely belated and the story having been developed at

different stages, the High Court should not have relied

the same; and lastly that the- pieces of circumstantial

evidence proved against the appellant were consistent with

several innocent explanations and the High Court therefore

erred in relying them without excluding those possi-

bilities.

The decision of the appeal, in our view, lies within a

very narrow compass and it is not necessary to pronounce

all the points that were-argued before us. In our judgment,

there is no evidence'to establish affirmatively that the

death of Jaspal was caused by potassium cyanide and that

being so, the charge under section 201, Indian Penal Code,

must also fail.' The High Court in reaching a contrary

conclusion not only acted suspicions and conjectures but

inadmissible evidence.,

The circumstances in which Jaspal died will for ever

remain shrouded in mystery and the material placed the

record it is not possible to unravel them. It may well be

that he was murdered by Mohinderpal without the knowledge or

consent of Palvinder and the incident took place at

Baldevnagar Camp and not at the house and that Mohinderpal

alone disposed of the dead body and that the confession of

Palvinder is wholly false and the advertisement issued in

Milap correctly reflected the facts

101

so far as she was concerned. The evidence led by the

prosecution, however, is of such a character that no,

reliance can be-placed it and no affirmative conclusions

can be drawn from it. The remarks of the Sessions Judge;

that the consequences had definitely revealed that justice

could not always be procured by wealth and other worldly

resources and that the case would perhaps go down in history

as one of the most sensational cases because of the parties

involved and the gruesome way"in which the murder was

committed, disclose a frame of mind not necessarily

judicial. It was unnecessary to introduce sentimentalism in

a judicial decision. The High Court was not able to reach a

positive conclusion that Palvinder was responsible for the

murder of her husband.

Whether Jaspal committed suicide or died of poison

taken under a mistake or whether poison was administared to

him by the appellant or by Mohinderpal or by both of them

are questions the answers to which have been left very vague

and indefinite by the circumstantial evidence in the case.

In view of the situation of the parties and the belated

investigation of the case and the sensation it created, it

was absolutely necessary for the courts below to safeguard

them. selves against the danger of basing their conclusions

suspicions howsoever strong. It. Seems to us that the

trial court, &Ad to a certain extent the High Court, fell

into the same error against which warning was given by Baron

Alderson in Beg. v. Hodge(1), where he said as follows:-

The mind was apt to take a pleasure in

adapting circumstances to one another, and even in straining

them a little, if need be, to force them to form parts of

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one connected whole; and the more ingenious the mind of the

individual, the more likely was it, considering such

matters, to overreach and mislead itself, to supply some

little link that is wanting, to take for granted some fact

consistent with its previous theories and necessary to

render them complete."

(1) (1838) 2 Lew. 227.

102

We had recently occasion to emphasize this point in

Nargundkar v. The State of Madhya Pradesh(1).

In order to establish the charge under section 201,

Indian Penal Code, it is essential to prove that an offence

has been committed-mere suspicion that it has been committed

is not sufficient,that the accused knew or had reason to

believe that such offence had been committed- and with the

requisite-knowledge and with the intent to screen the

offender from legal punishment causes the evidence thereof

to disappear or gives false information respecting such

offences knowing or having reason to believe the same to be

false. It was essential in these circumstances for the

prosecution to establish affirmatively that the death of

Jaspal was caused by the administration of potassium cyanide

by some person (the appellant having been acquitted of this

charge) and that she had reason to believe that it was so

caused and with that knowledge she took part in the

concealment and 'disposal of the dead body. There is no

evidence whatsoever this point. The following facts, that

Jaspal died, that his body was found in a trunk and was

discovered from a well and that the appellant took part in

the disposal of the body do not establish the cause of his

death or the manner and circumstances in which it came

about. As already stated, there is no direct evidence to

prove that potassium cyanide was administered to him by any

person. The best evidence this question would have been

that of the doctor who performed the postmortem examination.

That evidence does not prove that Jaspal died as a result of

administration of potassium cyanide. the other hand, the

doctor was of the opinion that there were no positive

postmortem signs which could suggest poisoning. He stated

that potassium cyanide being corrosive poison, would produce

hypermia, softening and ulceration of the gastro-intestinal

track and that in this case he did not notice any such

signs. He further said that potassium cyanide corrodes the

lips and the mouth, and none of these signs was the body.

This evidence

(1) [1952] S.C.R, 1091

103

therefore instead of proving that death was caused by

administration of potassium cyanide, to the extent it. goes,

negatives that fact.

The High Court placed reliance the confession of Palvinder

made the 15th April, 1950, to bold this fact proved. The

confession is in these terms:-

"My husband Jaspal Singh was fond of hunting as well as of

photography. From hunting whatever skins (khalls) he

brought home he became fond of colouring them. He also

began to do the work of washing of photos out of eagerness.

One day in December, 1949, Jaspal Singh said to my cousin

(Tay's son) Mohinderpal Singh to, get him material for

washing photos. He(Mohinderpal Singh) said to Harnam Singh,

who is head clerk in Baldevnagar Camp, to bring the same

from,the Cantt. Harnam Singh went to the Cantt. and

return said that the material for washing photos could be

had only by a responsible Government official. He told so

to Mohinderpat Singh, who said that Harnam Singh should take

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his name and get the medicine. Thereupon Harnam Singh went

to the Cantt. and brought the medicine. I kept this

medicine. As the medicine wassticking to the paper I

put it in water in a small bottle and kept it in the

almirah. In those days my husband was in Ambala and I lived

with him in the kothi in the city. He went for hunting for

2-3 days and there he developed abdominal trouble and began

to purge. He sent for medicine 3-4 days from Dr. Sohan

Singh. One day I placed his medicine bottle in the almirah

where medicine, for washing photos had been placed. I was

sitting outside and Jaspal Singh enquired from me where his

medicine, was. I told him that it was in the almirah. By

mistake he took that medicine which was meant for washing

photos. At that time, he fell down and my little son was

standing by his side. He said 'Mama, Papa had fallen'. I

went inside and saw, that he was in agony and in short time

be expired. Thereafter I went to Mohinderpal Singh

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and told him all that had happened. He said that father of

Jaspal Singh had arrived and that he should be 'intimated.

But I did not tell him, because his connections were not

good with his son and myself. Out of fear I placed his

corpse in a box and Mohinderpal Singh helped me in doing so.

For 4-5 days the box remained in my kothi. Thereafter I

said to Mohinderpal Singh that if he did not help me I would

die., He got removed that box from my kothi with the help of

my servants and placing the same in his jeep went to his

store in Baldevnagar Camp and kept the same there. That box

remained there for 8-10 days. Thereafter one day I went to

the camp and from there got placed the trunk in the jeep and

going with Mohinderpal Singh I threw the same in a well near

Chhat Banur. I do not remember the date when Jaspal Singh

took the medicine by mistake. It was perhaps in January,

1950."

The statement read as a whole is of an exculpatory

character. It does not suggest or prove the commission of

any offence under the Indian Penal Code by any one. It not

only exculpates her from the commission of an offence but

also exculpates Mohinderpal. It states that the death of

Jaspal was accidental. The statement does not amount to a

confession and is thus inadmissible in evidence. It was

observed by their Lordships of the Privy Council in

Narayanaswami v. Emperor(1) that the word "confession" as

used in the 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. In this view of the law the High Court

(1) (1939) 66 I.A. 66; A.I.R. 1939 P.C. 47:

105

was in error in treating the statement of Palvinder as the

most important piece of evidence in support of the charge

under section 201, Indian Penal' Code. The learned Judges

in one part of their judgment observed that strictly

speaking exculpatory statements in which the prisoner denies

her guilt cannot be regarded as confessions, but went to

say that such statements are often used as circumstantial

evidence of guilty consciousness by showing them to be false

and fabricated. With great respect we have not been able,to

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follow the meaning of these observations and the learned

counsel appearing at the Bar for the prosecution was unable

to explain what these words exactly indicated. The

statement not being a confession and being of an exculpatory

nature in which the guilt had been denied by the prisoner,

it could not be used as evidence in the case to prove her

guilt.

Not only was the High Court in error in treating the

alleged confession of Palvinder as evidence in the case but

it was further in error in accepting a part of it after

finding that the rest of it was false. It said that the

statement that the deceased took poison by mistake should be

ruled out of consideration for the simple reason that if the

deceased had taken poison by mistake the conduct of the

parties would have been completely different, and that she

would have then run to his side and raised a hue and cry and

would have sent immediately for medical aid, that it was

incredible that if the deceased had taken poison by mistake,

his wife Would have,stood idly by and allowed him to die.

The court thus accepted the inculpatory part of that

statement and rejected the exculpatory part. In doing so it

contravened the well accepted rule regarding the use of

confession and admission that these must either be accepted

as a whole or rejected as a whole and that the court is not

competent to accept only the inculpatory part while

rejecting the exculpatory part as inherently incredible.

Reference in this connection may be made to the observations

of the Full Bench of the Allahabad

106

High Court in Emperor v. Balmakund(1), with which

observations we fully concur. The confession there

comprised of two elements, (a) an account of how the accused

killed the women, and (b) an account of his reasons for

doing so, the former element being inculpatory and the

latter exculpatory and the question referred to the Full

Bench was: Can the court if it is of opinion that the

inculpatory part commends belief and the exculpatory part is

inherently incredible, act upon the former and refuse to act

upon the latter ? The answer -to the reference was that

where there is no other evidence to show affirmatively that

any portion of the exculpatory element in the confession is

false, the court must accept or reject the confession as a

-whole and cannot accept only the inculpatory element while

rejecting the exculpatory element as inherently incredible.

The alleged confession of Palvinder is wholly of an'

exculpatory nature and does not admit the commission, of any

crime whatsoever. The suspicious circumstances from which

an inference of guilt would be drawn were contained in that

part of the statement which concerned the disposal of the

dead body. This part of the statement could not be used as

evidence by holding that the first part which was of an

exculpatory character was false when there was no evidence

to prove that it was so, and the only material which it

could be so hold was the conduct mentioned in the latter

part of the same statement and stated to be inconsistent

with the earlier part of the confession.

The result therefore is that no use can be made of the

statement made by Palvinder and contained in the alleged

confession and which the High Court thought was the most

important piece of evidence in -the case to prove that the

death of Jaspal was caused by poisoning or as a result of an

offence having been committed. Once this confession is

excluded altogether, there remains no evidence for holding

that Jaspal died as a result of the administration of potas-

sium cyanide.

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(1) (193o) I.L.R. 52 All. 101.

107

The circumstantial evidence referred to by the

High Court which according to it tends to establish that

Jaspal did not die a natural death is of the' following

nature: That Palvinder and Mohinderpal had a motive to get

rid of the deceased as -she was carrying- with Mohinderpal.

The motive, even if proved in the case, cannot prove the

circumstances under which Jaspal died or the cause which

resulted in his death. - That Mohinderpal was proved to be

in possession of a quantity of potassium cyanide and was in

a position to administer it to the deceased is a cir-

cumstance of a neutral character. Mere possession of

potassium cyanide by Mohinderpal without its being traced in

the body of Jaspal cannot establish that his death was

caused by this deadly poison. In any case, the circumstance

is not of a character which is wholly incompatible with the

innocence of the appellant. The other evidence referred to

by the High Court as corroborating the latter part of

Palvinder's alleged confession in the view of the case that

we have taken does not require any discussion because if the

confession--is inadmissible, no question of corroborating it

arises.

Mr. Sethi argued that the statements contained

in the alleged confession are contradicted rather than

corroborated by the evidence led by the prosecution and that

the confession is proved to be untrue. It is unnecessary to

discuss this matter in the view that we have taken of the

case.

The result, therefore, is that we are constrained to

hold that there is no material, direct or indirect, for the

finding reached by the High Court that the death of Jaspal

wascaused by the administration of potassium cyanide. If we

believe the defence version his death was the result of an

accident. If that version is disbelieved,then there is no

proof as to the cause of his death. The method and manner

in which the dead body of Jaspal was dealt with and disposed

of raise some suspicion but from these, facts a positive

conclusion cannot be reached that he died an unnatural death

necessarily, Cases are not unknown

108

where death- is accidental and the accused has acted in a

peculiar manner regarding the disposal of the dead body for

reasons best known to himself. One of them might well be

that he was afraid of a false case being started against

him. Life and liberty of persons cannot be put in jeopardy

mere suspicions, howsoever strong, and they can only be

deprived of these the basis of definite proof. In this

case, as found by the High Court, not only were the Sub-

Inspector of police and police constables and other

witnesses guilty of telling deliberate lies but the

prosecution was blameworthy in introducing witnesses in the

case to support their lies and that being so, we feel that

it would be unsafe to convict the appellant the material

that is left after eliminating the perjured,, false and

inadmissible evidence.

For the reasons given above we allow this appeal,

set aside the conviction of the appellant under section 201,

Indian Penal Code, and acquit her of that charge also.

Appeal allowed.

Agent for the appellant: Sardar Bahadur. Agent for the

respondent: P.A. Mehta. ,Agent for the caveator: Harbans

Singh.

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