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State (CBI) v. Mohd. Salim Zargar @ Fayaz

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 376Decided 20 Mar 2025
Criminal Appeal No. 1681 of 2009 (with connected Crl.A. No. 1770 of 2009)
Justice Abhay S. Oka · Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

In 1990, the Vice-Chancellor of Kashmir University, Dr. Mushir-ul-Haq, and his Personal Secretary were kidnapped by armed militants of the banned JKSLF outfit and later shot dead when the government did not meet the kidnappers' demands. A connected appeal concerned the kidnapping and murder of an HMT General Manager in a similar operation. After a trial lasting over 19 years, the Special Court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (TADA) acquitted all the accused, including respondent Mohd. Salim Zargar, and the CBI appealed to the Supreme Court against the acquittal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal, holding that the confessional statements recorded by a police officer under Section 15 of the TADA Act were unreliable and legally vitiated. They lacked the mandatory safeguards laid down in Kartar Singh (no evidence the accused were given time to reflect before confessing, no record of questions/answers establishing voluntariness, and confessions recorded the same day inside a guarded BSF camp or Joint Interrogation Centre, not a "free atmosphere"). Zargar's confession had also already been rejected in a separate 2002 TADA case, and the Court held the principle of issue estoppel barred relying on the same confession again. With the confessions excluded, the murder weapon never recovered, and no eyewitness able to identify the accused, the prosecution's case collapsed entirely.

Lesson Learnt

Confessions made to police officers are ordinarily inadmissible in Indian law, and even special anti-terror statutes that create an exception to this rule (like the now-repealed TADA) demand strict, scrupulous compliance with procedural safeguards. Courts will not sustain a conviction, or reverse an acquittal, on a confession that was rushed, unrecorded for voluntariness, or extracted in an intimidating setting.

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

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