In this case, a 15 year old boy named Ajit Pal was allegedly killed by his neighbor Om Prakash Yadav, along with his brother, Raja Yadav, and son, Rajesh @ Rakesh Yadav. The Sessions Court found all the three accused guilty of different offences. Om Prakash Yadav was sentenced to life imprisonment along with Raja Yadav and Rajesh Yadav who were sentenced to death. Aggrieved by the judgment of the Sessions Court, all three convicts appealed to the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. A Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court confirmed their conviction and sentences, including the death penalty visited upon Raja Yadav and Rajesh Yadav. Assailing this verdict, the three convicts are before this Court by way of these appeals by special leave petition. So what happened in this case was that Ajit Pal’s mother received a substantial sum of money upon sale of some property by her father. This information was in the knowledge of Om Prakash Yadav, a neighbor, and his entire family. Ajit Pal, left the house at 9 o’clock in the night to see the ‘Holika’ and did not return. Mother and brother of Ajit Pal received call for ransom. His brother lodged a ‘missing person’ report at Gorakhpur Police Station on. Call details and IMEI data of the phone which was used to make the call for ransom were obtained by the Investigating Officer from the Cyber Cell. The Investigating officer was informed by the Cyber Cell that the mobile phone was used to make the ransom calls and the handset was issued to Om Prakash Yadav. The Investigating officer took Rajesh Yadav to the police station and questioned him at 13:45 hours, where he confessed to having killed Ajit Pal, along with Raja Yadav. The investigating officer recorded a Memorandum containing the confession of Rajesh Yadav, in which he had also stated that he would help recover Ajit Pal’s body and the murder weapon. Rajesh Yadav led them to the place where Ajit Pal’s body was found in the well. It was stuffed in a white plastic sack. The body was identified as that of Ajit Pal by the witnesses present. An iron knife was also seized at the behest of Rajesh Yadav from the canal. There were blood-like stains on the knife. The seizure was affected in the presence of witnesses under a Property Seizure Memo. Rajesh Yadav was then arrested on 29.03.2013 at 18:30 hours under an Arrest Memo.

Whether discovery can be proved against person if he wasn't accused of any offence & wasn't in custody of police at the time of confession?

The Supreme court in this case observed that “the condition necessary to bring Section 27 into operation is that the discovery of a fact in consequence of information received from a person ‘accused of any offense’ 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. It was observed that normally, Section 27 is brought into operation when a person in ‘police custody’ produces from some place of concealment some object, such as a dead body, a weapon or ornaments, said to be connected with the crime, of which the informant is accused.”

The Supreme court in this case observed that “the condition necessary to bring Section 27 into operation is that the discovery of a fact in consequence of information received from a person ‘accused of any offense’ 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. It was observed that normally, Section 27 is brought into operation when a person in ‘police custody’ produces from some place of concealment some object, such as a dead body, a weapon or ornaments, said to be connected with the crime, of which the informant is accused.”