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Raja @ Ayyappan v. State of Tamil Nadu

Criminal Appeal · 2020 INSC 325Decided 1 Apr 2020
Criminal Appeal No. 1120 of 2010
Justice S. Abdul Nazeer · Justice Deepak Gupta

Background

The appellant was alleged to have been part of a group that, in 1990, planted a time bomb near a Tamil Nadu government secretariat building as part of a conspiracy to achieve a separate statehood for Tamil Nadu by intimidating the government. A special TADA court convicted him based partly on the confessional statements of two co-accused persons, since the appellant himself had been absconding for years and so could not be tried jointly with them; he was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that under Section 15 of the TADA Act and Section 30 of the Indian Evidence Act, a co-accused's confession can only be used as evidence against another accused if they were tried jointly in the same case, relying on its own earlier Constitution Bench ruling in Kartar Singh and other precedents. Because the appellant's trial was held separately from the co-accused persons who made the confessions (due to his having absconded), those confessions could not legally be used against him, regardless of how damaging they were. With that evidence excluded, there was no valid basis left to sustain the conviction, so the Court set aside the trial court's judgment and acquitted the appellant.

Lesson Learnt

A confession made by one accused person cannot be used as evidence against another accused in the same case unless they are tried together: if a person is tried separately (even due to his own earlier absconding), co-accused confessions cannot be the basis for his conviction.

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

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