Aghnu 

Nagesia v. State of Bihar, AIR 1965 SC 119

The appellant was tried for murder. The principal evidence against him consisted of a
first information report containing a full confession of the crime. The appellant was
convicted under s. 302 Indian Penal Code by the trial court and the High Court upheld
the conviction, By special leave he appealed to the Supreme Court. The question
before the court was whether the whole confessional statement in the first information
report was banned by s. 25 of the Evidence Act or only those portions of it were
barred which related to the actual commission of the crime.
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India, in the case of Aghnoo Nagesia v
State of Bihar, interpreted the application of Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act,
1872 (hereinafter the Act) to an interesting set of facts where Aghnoo Nagesia gave a
full-fledged confessional first information report stating that he had committed the
murders. While holding Section 25 as a ‘bright-line rule’ to provide sufficient
safeguards to the accused against self-incrimination, the Court laid down that Section
27 of the Act serves as the only exception to Section 25 of the Act, and in pursuance
of it, assumed Aghnoo Nagesia to be in the ‘constructive custody’ of the police and
thus admitted the information, distinctly related to the discovery of bodies and the
murder weapon, as evidence.

In light of this, it is argued that Section 27 of the Act only serves as an exception to
Section 26 and not to Section 25. Further, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the
application of Section 27 in Aghnoo Nagesia’s case is problematic as the essential
requirement of the accused being in ‘police custody’ is not satisfied in Aghnoo
Nagesia’s case.

HELD: A confession may consist of several parts and may reveal not only the actual
commission of the crime but also the motive, the preparation, the provocation etc. If
the confession is tainted the taint attaches to the whole statement of the accused. If a
statement contains an admission of an offence, not only that admission but also every
other admission of an incriminating fact contained in the statement is part of the
confession. Little substance and content would be left in sec 24, 25 and 26 if proof of
admissions of incriminating facts in confessional statement is permitted. The
appellant's first information report was a confessional statement to a police officer and
as such no part of it could be admitted into evidence on account of the ban in s.25
except in so far as the ban was lifted by s. 27 and except in so far as it identified the
appellant is the maker of the report.
Reasons for exclusion of confession to police another variety of confessions that are
under the evidence act regarded as involuntary are those made to a personnel. Section
25 expressly declares that such confessions shall not be proved. If confessions
to police were allowed to be preved in evidence, the police would torture the
accused and thus force him to confess to a crime which he might not have acommitted
A confession so obtained would naturally be unreliable. It would
not be voluntary. Such a confession will be irrelevant whatever may be its
form, direct, express, implied or inferred from conduct. The reasons for which
this policy was adopted when the act was passed in 1872 are probably still valid.