SCC Online Web Edition, © 2022 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Page 17 Monday, October 24, 2022 Printed For: Navami Krishnamurthy, Jindal Global University SCC Online Web Edition: http://www.scconline.com © 2022 EBC Publishing Pvt.Ltd., Lucknow. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the exact statement has not been deposed, more particularly when it comes to the authorship of concealment. The contents of the panchnama cannot be read into evidence as those do not constitute substantive evidence. 61. Further, the examination-in-chief of the PW-6, Sub-Inspector and PW-7, investigating officer does not indicate that they were read over the panchnama (Exh.5) before it was exhibited, since one of the panch witnesses was not examined and the second panch witness though examined yet has not said a word about the proceedings of the discovery panchnama. Everything thereafter fell upon the oral evidence of the investigating officer and the Sub-Inspector (PW-6). 62. In the aforesaid context, we may refer to and rely upon the decision of this Court in the case of Murli v. State of Rajasthan reported in (2009) 9 SCC 417, held as under: “34. The contents of the panchnama are not the substantive evidence. The law is settled on that issue. What is substantive evidence is what has been stated by the panchas or the person concerned in the witness box…….” [Emphasis supplied] 63. One another serious infirmity which has surfaced is in regard to the authorship of concealment by the person who is said to have discovered the weapon. 64. The conditions necessary for the applicability of Section 27 of the Act are broadly as under: (1) Discovery of fact in consequence of an information received from accused; (2) Discovery of such fact to be deposed to; (3) The accused must be in police custody when he gave information; and (4) So much of information as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered is admissible - Mohmed Inayatullah v. The State of Maharashtra : (1976) 1 SCC 828 : AIR 1976 SC 483 65. Two conditions for application (1) information must be such as has caused discovery of the fact; and (2) information must relate distinctly to the fact discovered - Earabhadrappa v. State of Karnataka : (1983) 2 SCC 330 : AIR 1983 SC 446” 66. We may refer to and rely upon a Constitution Bench decision of this Court in the case of State of Uttar Pradesh v. Deoman Upadhyaya reported in AIR 1960 SC 1125, wherein, Paragraph-71 explains the position of law as regards the Section 27 of the Evidence Act: “71. The law has thus made a classification of accused persons into two : (1) those who have the danger brought home to them by detention on a charge; and (2) those who are yet free. In the former category are also those persons who surrender to the custody by words or action. The protection given to these two classes is different. In the case of persons belonging to the first category the law has ruled that their statements are not admissible, and in the case of the second category, only that portion, of the statement is admissible as is guaranteed by the discovery of a relevant fact unknown before the statement to the investigating authority. That statement may even be confessional in nature, as when the person in custody says:“I pushed him down such and such mineshaft”, and the body of the victim is found as a result, and it can be proved that his death was due to injuries received by a fall down the mineshaft.” [Emphasis supplied] 67. The scope and ambit of Section 27 of the Evidence Act were illuminatingly stated in Pulukuri Kottaya v. Emperor, AIR 1947 PC 67, which have become locus classicus, in the following words: “10. ….It is fallacious to treat the “fact discovered” within the section as