27. How much of information received from accused may be proved
Provided that, when any fact is deposed to as discovered in consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence, in the custody of a police officer, so much of such information, whether it amounts to a confession or not, as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered, may be proved.
COMMENTS
Applicability
For the application of section 27 the statement must be split into its components and to separate the admissible portion. Only those components or portions which were the immediate cause of the discovery would be legal evidence and not the rest which must be excised and rejected; Mohd. Inayatullah v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1976 SC 483.
Condition for operation
The condition necessary to bring the section 27 into operation is that the discovery of a fact in a consequence of information received from a person accused of any offence in the custody of a police officer must be deposed to, and thereupon so much of the information as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered may be proved; Pulukuri Kottaya v. Emperor, AIR 1947 PC 119.
Discovered fact
A fact discovered in an information supplied by the accused in his disclosure statement is a relevant fact and that is only admissible in evidence if something new is discovered or recovered from the accused which was not within the knowledge of the police before recording the disclosure statement of the accused; Kamal Kishore v. State (Delhi Administration), (1997) 2 Crimes 169 (Del).
Where a witness was related to deceased and resident of another place, even then his evidence regarding recovery of weapons and clothes cannot be discarded; State of Madhya Pradesh v. Rammi, 1999 (1) JLJ 49.
Scope
Under section 27 it is not necessary that a disclosure statement must be signed by maker of the same or that thumb impression must be affixed to it; K.M. Ibrahim alias Bava v. State of Karnataka, 2000 Cr LJ 197 (Karn).
A confession made by an accused person while he is in custody must be excluded from evidence and permits the admission of such a confession under the condition prescribed by this section; Kamal Kishore v. State (Delhi Administration), (1997) 2 Crimes 169 (Del).
