^^ .^& .1) HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISG^RH. BILASPUR 2-7.•?-^ CORAM: Hon'ble Shrj Raieev Gupta. CJ. & Hon'ble Shri Sunil KumarSinha. J. Criminal Appeal No. 1120 of 1992 Sudhar Singh alias Nanhi Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (Now State of Chhattisgarh) JUDGMENT <^ HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE RAJEEVGUPTA ^ Forconsideration Sd/- Sunil Kumar Sinha Judge Sd/- Chief Justice Post for Judgment :^/07/2010^ sd/- r Sunil KumarSinha | Judge ! » ] i. HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH.BILASPUR 2-ar-7-^ -,^ e CORAM: Hon'ble Shri Raieev Gupta. C.J. & Hon'ble Shri Sunil Kumar Sinha. J. APPELLANT RESPONDENT Criminal ADDeal No. 1120 of 1992 Sudhar Singh alias Nanhi son of Budhram, aged 22 years, resident of Charpara village Pathara Padara, 6ut Post Belgahna of P.S. Kota, Tahsil & DistrictBilaspur Versus State of Madhya Pradesh (Now State of Chhattisgarh) (CriminalADDeal underSection 374 (21 ofTheCode of Criminal Procedure. 1973) ADpearance: Mr. R.K. Jain, Advocate for the appellant. Mr. Akhil Mishra, Dy. Govt. Advocate for the State. JUDGMENT (2J.07.2010) Following judgment of the Court was delivered by Sunil Kumar Sinha. J. (1) . Appellant- Sudhar Singh stands convicted u/s 302 IPC and sentenced to undergo jmprisonment for lifeby the Sessions Judge, Bilaspur in Sessions Trial No. 415/91 on 24th of October, 1992. K (2) The facts, briefly stated, are as under:- Deceased-Nirmala Bai was the wife of the appellant. On 23.8.91, as usual, she had gone to the village pump with a metal hawla (water pot for bringing water) at a distance about 50 yards from her house. While she was returning afterfiling the ^aw/a, the appellant suddenly appeared with a tangia and assaulted her from back side. He gave repeated teng/'a blows to the deceased \^ resulting into her death.Aghaniya Bar (PW-1) whose house was ^fc- Criminal ApDeal No. 1120 of 1992 very nearer to the hand-pump, was attracted by the sound of fall of hawla. She immediately came out of her house and sawthe appellant running away with bloodstained tangia in his hands. She started raising alarm that the appellant is running after assaulting his wife. Brijkunwar (PW-2) was also in frontof her house. She had also seen the appellant running away with teng/'a in his hands. Brijkunwar informed the mother of the appellant, Jugarjbai,about the incident. Santram (PW-3) lodged Dehatinalishi. J^\e post- mortem examination was conducted by Dr. Subhash Ghosalkar (PW-5),who found deep incised wound 4 inch x 2 inch x2 inch on the back of the neck in between4 & 5 cervical vertebrae. Vertebrae and spinal cord werecut and artery and vein in the vicinity were also found cut. Another incised wound of 2 Vz inch x 1 inch x 1 inch was found on the right side of the face below maxillary prominence. Injuries were ante-mortem. The Doctor opined that the death was on account of above injuries and it was homicidal in nature. During the course of investigation, the appellant wastaken into custody and his memorandum statement (Ex-P/2) was recordedon 27.8.91 and blood stained teng/a was seized at the instance of the appellant. The cloths of the appellant were also seized.. The seized articles were sent for chemicalexamination to Forensic Science Laboratory and a report Ex.-P/16 was obtained which confirmed the presence of blood on the cloths of the appellant as also on the tangia seized at the instance of the appellant. The case of the prosecution was based on the testimonies of two witnesses namely Aghaniya Bai (PW-1) and Brijkunwar (PW-2) who saw the appellant running away fromthe place of occurrence having blood stained tangia in his hands and the seizure of blood stained tangia at the instance ofthe appellant. (3) Mr.R.K. Jain, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the ^.apRellant, has not disputed the homicidal death of the deceased. He :..y-^:~\ ^] Ij ^ .€. 1.& Criminal Appeal No. 1120 of 1992 argued that there were no eye-witnesses to the incident; the above two- witnesses had only seeh the appellant running away from the place of occurrence; and the seizure o\ tangia was after 4 days ofthe incident, therefore, the conviction on the above evidence cannot be sustained. (4) On theother hand, Mr. Akhil Mishra, learned Dy. Govt. Advocate appearing on behalf of the State, opposed these arguments and supported the judgmentpassed bythe Sessions Court. (5) We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at length and have also perused the records of the sessions case. (6) Admittedly, there were no eye-witnesses to the incident and the case of the prosecution was based on circumstantial evidence. In such cases the circumstances from which the conclusion of the guilt is to drawn should befully established and all the circumstances so established should be of conclusive nature and consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and the chain of circumstances must be complete so as not to leave any reasonable ground for the belief consistentwith the innocence of the accused. It is on these principles, the evidence led by the prosecution has to be examined in each case and then only the conviction can be based on circumstantial evidence. (7) In the present case, it was a morning time of about 6-7.00 a.m. According to the prosecution, the deceased had gone to fetch waterfrom the public hand-pump. AghaniyaBai(PW-l) deposed that as soon as she saw that Nirmala Bai was lying in ga//'in injured condition, she also saw that the appellant was running away from that place having a tangia in his S,, hands. She deposed that she sawthe appellant from a distance ofabout .\..>-./-<.-'1S%. l..-<^-^.^ ^y ^ ,e Criminal Appeal No. 1120 of 1992 20 steps. Almostsimilar is the evidence of Brijkunwar (PW-2) who also deposed that she saw the appellantrunning from the place of occurrence having a tangia and she also saw the deceased lying in ga//'. We find that a formal cross-examination is thereof these twowitnesses.and nothing could be brought on record, on which, either their testimonies may be discarded or it may be held that they are trying to falsely implicate the appellant ih the above manner. (8) Why the appellant would run away from the placewhere his wife was lying in injured condition. If the appellant would not have been the assailant, after such incident, he must have tried to save life of his wife and should have raised alarm etc.after such an incident at public place. We note that these two witnesses are quite independentand their houses are situated near the hand-pump. There is no whisper that they were keeping ill will against the appellant, therefore, there was no reason with them to falsely implicate the appellant in the above manner. Had there been a case of false implicatibn by these witnesses, they could have deposed more than what they have deposed and could have posed them as the eye-witnesses. In the facts and circumstances of the case, the aboveconduct of the appellantleadsto the conclusion that hewas the culprit of crime and was seen running away from the place of occurrence with a teng/'a in his hands immediately afterthe occurrence. Apart from the above, we also find that the memorandum and seizure of teng/'aat the instance ofthe appellant wasestablished by the prosecution by evidence of Santram (PW-3). The blood stains in F.S.L. report were found on the tangia seized at the instance ofthe appellant. Even the blood stains were .^" ^ - ~\? ^K^ t :^,.J^/ ^. ^^..^^.^ ,.r1^.: Criminal Appeal No. 1120 of 1992 also found on the cloths seized from the possession ofthe appellantand the appellant could not explain all this. (9) Though the act of absconding is normally considered as weak link in the chain of circumstances for establishing the guilt of an accused,but inthe presentcase, the matteris not that of simple absconding. The evidence of above two witnesseswould show that falling ofthe deceased on account ofinjuries and running away of the appellant with an axe in his hands were events of the same time which were simultaneousiy noticed by the above two witnesses. If the appellant was innocent, he should not have run away in the above manner when the cries were made by Aghaniya Bai (PW-1) from a distance of 20 steps, which must have been noticed by the appellant also. This shows mens-rea and guilty mind of the appellant, therefore, theabove circumstance along withother circumstances of memorandumand seizureof blood stainedcloths and tangia at the instance of the appellant were sufficient to hold him guilt of the offence of murder of his wife. (10) For the foregoing reasons, we do not find any infirmity in the judgment and finding recorded by the Sessions Court. (11) The appeal is liable to be dismissed and is hereby dismissed. Itis stated that the appellant is on bail. He is directed to surrender immediately to serve the remaining sentence in accordancewith law. Sd/- Chief Justice c Sd/- Sunil Kumar Sinha Judge vatti