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Mehboob Ali & Anr. v. State of Rajasthan

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 808 of 2010)Decided 27 Oct 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 808 of 2010
Chief Justice H.L. Dattu · Justice Arun Mishra

Background

In January 2004, police arrested Puran Mal and found five forged Rs.100 notes on him. He named Mehboob Ali and Firoz as the people who had given them to him. Those two then told police that they had got the fake notes from Anju Ali in Delhi and identified him there. The chain continued through Majhar and then Liyakat Ali, from whom police recovered forged notes and equipment for making them. The trial court and the Rajasthan High Court convicted the appellants under Sections 489B and 489C read with Section 120B of the IPC.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals and upheld the convictions. The appellants argued that their confessions made in police custody were inadmissible because no forged notes were recovered from them. The Court held that Section 27 of the Evidence Act allows the part of such a statement that leads to a fact the police did not already know. Here, the statements led police to Anju Ali and to his involvement in forged notes, which was not known to them before. That discovery lifted the bar on custodial confessions, and the Court found the overall chain of facts showed the accused acted together in a conspiracy.

Lesson Learnt

A statement made to the police while in custody usually cannot be used against the accused. But if that statement leads police to a new fact, such as a hidden person or place they did not know about, the part of the statement that produced that fact can be used as evidence.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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