A retracted confession is one which is withdrawn or retracted later on by the person making it. Such a confession, if proved to be voluntarily made, can be acted upon along with the other evidence in the case, and there is no legal requirement that a retracted confession must be supported by independent reliable evidence corroborating it in material particulars. The use to be made of such a confession is a matter of prudence rather than of law.
Three important rules regarding confessions which are retracted are:
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1. A confession is not to be regarded as involuntary merely because it is retracted later on.
2. As against the maker of the confession, the retracted confession may form the basis of a conviction if it is believed to be true and voluntarily made.
3. The confession of a co-accused cannot be treated as substantive evidence, and can be pressed into service only when the Court is inclined to accept other evidence and feels the necessity of seeking an assurance in support of its conclusions deductible from the said evidence.
In criminal cases, where the other evidence adduced against an accused person is wholly unsatisfactory, and the prosecution seeks to rely on the retracted confession of a co-accused person, the presumption of innocence, which is the basis of criminal jurisprudence, assists the accused person and compels the Court to render the verdict that the charge is not proved. (Harichandra Kurmi v. State of Bihar (A.I.R. 1964 S. C. 1184)
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The Allahabad High Court has observed that just because a confession made by an accused person is subsequently retracted, and there is little or no evidence to support the confession, such confession is not to be rejected in all cases. Rather, the credibility of such a confession is, in each case, a matter to be decided by the Court, according to the circumstances of each particular case.
The Madras High Court has also observed that there is no absolute rule of law that a confession made and subsequently retracted by an accused cannot be accepted as evidence without independent corroborative evidence. In all such cases, the weight to be given to such a confession must depend on the circumstances in which it was originally given and the circumstances in which it was subsequently retracted.
The Calcutta High Court has observed that it is not safe to convict an accused on his retracted confession which is uncorroborated. It has further ruled that it would be even more unsafe to place any reliance on a retracted confession against a co-accused.
The Supreme Court has observed that a retracted confession requires independent corroboration in material particulars. It was further observed that hard and fast rules cannot be laid down regarding the necessity of corroboration in the case of a retracted confession.
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The rule of prudence requires corroboration by independent evidence, but it does not require that each and every circumstance mentioned in the confession with regard to the participation of the accused in the crime must be separately and independently corroborated; nor it is essential that corroboration must come from facts and circumstances discovered after the confession was made.
In Pyare Lai v. State of Rajasthan (A.I.R. 1963 S.C. 1094), it was held by the Supreme Court that a retracted confession may form the legal basis of a conviction if the Court is satisfied that it was true and was voluntarily made. But it was also held that a Court shall not base a conviction on such a confession without corroboration. It is not a rule of law, but is only a rule of prudence.
It cannot even be laid down as an inflexible rule of practice or prudence that under no circumstances, such a conviction can be made without further corroboration, for a Court may, in a particular case, be convinced of the absolute truth of a confession and be prepared to act upon it without further corroboration.
But it may be laid down as a general rule of practice that it is unsafe to rely upon a confession, much less a retracted confession, unless the Court is satisfied that the retracted confession is true and voluntarily made and has been corroborated in material particulars.