SC: ‘Confession made in handwriting in presence of an Officer is to be considered voluntary’

The Apex Court on 03.10.2018 , in RAM LAL v STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH partly permitted the appeal filed by the appellant. These appeals had been made against the High Court of Himachal Pradesh ‘s judgment  affirming the conviction and imprisonment sentence by the trail court for the offences committed under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988along with various other sections of the Indian Penal Code.

FACTS:The accused worked as a peon in a bank where due to scarcity in the staff of clerks, he was assigned the position of clerk where his main duty was   of manning the savings bank account counter. Whenever customers   would approach him  for withdrawing money , fake credit entries would be prepared in the ledger sheets  while filling in the withdrawal slips and then  submitting  to the concerned officer  who would in turn permit such withdrawal. As such massive wrongful loss had been  caused to the concerned bank  as a  result an Inquiry Committee  was  set up  and  later on after the proper investigation a charge sheet for the above mentioned offences were prepared against the appellant.

The trial court after considering the evidences passed  a judgement  of conviction against the accused ,being grieved by the judgement , an appeal before the High Court was made that  was later on dismissed .

DECISION BY THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA: The Apex Court  in parts allowed the appeals. While it  was alleged that the confession made by the accused was involuntary which was later on  as well confirmed by the Apex Court that the confession was indeed voluntary  that was concluded in the form of handwriting  made when  the  Assistant Chief Officer  was present constituting  the base of his conviction as upheld by the lower Courts. However, the imprisonment  sentence of the appellant was reduced to three years  while confirming  the conviction under the sections of  Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988  and the other imprisonment  term  pertaining to two years remained confirmed,  also the  convictions held  under various sections of Indian  Penal  code   and the imprisonment in connection to the section was minimized  to  a term of three years.

https://www.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2009/5682/5682_2009_Judgement_03-Oct-2018.pdf