Video Of Confession Made Before Police is Inadmissible as Evidence: SC.

Reporting By: Amit Kashyap.

The Supreme Court bench comprising of CJI UU Lalit, Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia in Munikrishna versus the State, Case No.: CrA 1597-1600 of 2022, set aside the concurrent convictions murder and observed that video of confession made before the police is inadmissible as evidence.

The Bench reiterated that statement given by the accused to the police u.s 161 CrPC is admissible as evidence.

In the instant case, the trial court convicted the accused u.s 302 IPC and later Karnataka High Court dismissed their appeals.

The convicts approached the Supreme Court wherein the Bench observed that the prosecution’s entire case is based on confessional statements of the accused which were given while they were in police custody.

As per the bench, the courts below incorrectly placed reliance on the voluntary statements of the accused and on their videography statements.

It added that under Article 20(3) of the Constitution an accused cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself and as per Section 25 of the Evidence Act, a confessional statement given to police is inadmissible as evidence.

Background:

As per the police, all accused were arrested from a school building and they confessed to 24 crimes. Their confessions regarding the planning and execution of murders were video recorded and they were convicted based on the said video of confession.

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