Indian Evidence Act, 1872
The Indian Evidence Act stipulates how facts can be proved through evidence. The Evidence Act helps the judges to separate the 'wheat from the chaff' and plays a crucial role in the establishment of facts during the court proceedings. What evidence can be admitted, how it can admitted, how the burden of proof has to be discharged, etc, are matters governed by the Evidence Act.
The main principles which form the foundation of Law of Evidence are:
- evidence must be confined to the matter at hand
- hearsay evidence must not be admitted
- best evidence must be given in all cases
One of the main objectives of the Evidence Act is to prevent the inaccuracy in the admissibility of evidence and to introduce a more correct and uniform rule of practice.
The Act is divided into three parts:
Part I - Relevancy of facts or what facts may or may not be proved. These are dealt with in detail in Sections 5 to 55.
Part II - How the relevant facts are to be proved? The part deals with matters, which need not be prove under law and also how facts-in-issue or relevant facts are proved through oral and documentary evidence (Sections 56 to 100).
Part III - By whom and in what manner must the evidence be produced. It deals with the procedure for production of evidence and the effects of evidence (Sections 101 to 167).
Confession
The word "confession" appears for the first time in Section 24 of the Indian Evidence Act. This section comes under the heading of Admission so it is clear that the confessions are merely one species of admission. Confession is not defined in the Act. Justice Stephen in his Digest of the law of Evidence states, "confession is an admission made at any time by a person charged with a crime stating or suggesting the inference that he committed that crime.”
Admission and confession: Sections 17 to 31 deals with admission generally and include Sections 24 to 30 which deal with confession as distinguished from admission. If the conviction can be based on the statement alone, it is confession and where some supplementary evidence is needed to authorize a conviction, then it is an admission.
Forms of Confession
A confession may occur in many forms. When it is made to the court itself then it will be called judicial confession, and when it is made to anybody outside the court, it will be called extra-judicial confession. It may even consist of conversation to oneself, which may be produced in evidence if overheard by another.
For example, in Sahoo v. State of U.P. the accused who was charged with the murder of his daughter-in-law with whom he was always quarreling was seen on the day of the murder going out of the house, saying words to the effect, "I have finished her and with her the daily quarrels." The statement was held to be a confession relevant in evidence, for it is not necessary for the relevancy of a confession that it should be communicated to some other person.
Judicial confessions are made before a magistrate or in court in the due course of legal proceedings. A judicial confession has been defined to mean "plea of guilty on arrangement (made before a court) if made freely by a person in a fit state of mind. Extra-judicial confessions are made by the accused elsewhere than before a magistrate or in court. It is not necessary that the statements should have been addressed to any definite individual. It may have taken place in the form of a prayer.
It may be a confession to a private person. An extra-judicial confession has been defined to mean "a free and voluntary confession of guilt by a person accused of a crime in the course of conversation with persons other than judge or magistrate seized of the charge against himself".
For example, a man after the commission of a crime may write a letter to his relative or friend expressing his grief over the matter. This may amount to confession. Extra-judicial confession can be accepted and can be the basis of a conviction only if it passes the tests of credibility as laid down in the procedural laws.