HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A.GOPAL REDDY AND HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE R.KANTHA RAO CRIMINAL APPEAL No.130 of 2008 DATED: 17.11.2011 BETWEEN: State of A.P. rep.by PP .. Appellant And Vemarapu Bhasker Respondent HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A.GOPAL REDDY AND HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE R.KANTHA RAO CRIMINAL APPEAL No.130 of 2008 JUDGMENT: (Per AGR,J) The State through the Public Prosecutor ﬁled this appeal against the order of acquittal dated 10.06.2005 passed against the respondent/accused for the charges under Sections 376 and 302 IPC in S.C.No.382 of 2004 on the file of the I Additional Sessions Judge, Karimnagar. 2. The facts give rise for ﬁling the prosecution case are that the deceased Cheeti Sandya Rani daughter of late Gangaram who was married to Narayana, divorced him since disputes arose in between them. After divorce, she was residing with her parents at Karimnagar. The accused also stays nearby the house of the deceased and he developed illicit intimacy with her. The accused neglected his wife and children and started living with the deceased in a rented house of PW.6 and at that place the deceased was moving freely with PW.7, who is son of PW.6. The accused suspected her on this ground and vacated the room after conﬁrming the relationship with PW.7 by the deceased through PW.5 who is their friend. When PW.5 informed the relationship of the deceased with PW.7 as true, the accused turned angry and proclaimed that he would see the end of the deceased. 3. On 12.03.2002 the accused and his friend came to her house and asked the deceased to follow to his room. The accused who was in a drunken condition stated that he would return by 8.00 PM and asked her to get ready. The deceased feared stricken and informed PW.2 to report the matter to the police. PW.2 requested the accused and touched his feet not to take the deceased and on the next day, she came to know through the newspaper that the deceased died. PW.1, the panchayat Secretary of Nagunur village having come to know on 13.03.2002 at 6.00AM that a female dead body was found in SRSP canal, lodged a complaint Ex.P.1. The police registered the case in Crime No.56 of 2002 and after investigation ﬁled charge sheet for the oﬀences punishable under Section 376 and 302 IPC against the accused. 4. To substantiate its case, the prosecution examined P.Ws.1 to 14 and marked Exs.P.1 to P.21 besides marking material objects 1 to 5. On behalf of defence, no evidence was adduced. 5. The learned Sessions Judge on appreciation of the oral and documentary evidence found that the prosecution has miserably failed to establish the chain of circumstances pointing out the guilt of the accused and acquitted him of the charges. 6. We have heard the learned Additional Public Prosecutor representing the State and the learned counsel appearing for the respondent who have taken us through the entire evidence on record and also the ﬁndings recorded by the lower Court. 7. The entire case of the prosecution rests on the circumstantial evidence, therefore, the prosecution has to establish the four circumstances to bring home the guilt of the accused as held in Padala Veera Reddy v. State of A.P.[1] In the said decision, it was laid down by the Apex Court that when a case rests upon circumstantial evidence, such evidence must satisfy the following tests: (1) the circumstances from which an inference of guilt is sought to be drawn, must be cogently and firmly established. (2) those circumstances should be of a deﬁnite tendency unerringly pointing towards guilt of the accused. (3). The circumstances, taken cumulatively, should form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that within all human probability the crime was committed by the accused and none else and (4). The circumstantial evidence in order to sustain conviction must be complete and incapable of explanation of any other hypothesis than that of guilt of the accused and such evidence should not only be consistent with the guilt of the accused but should be inconsistent with his innocence. 8. The entire prosecution case rests on the evidence of PWs.2, 3, 6, PW.10, the doctor who conducted postmortem examination, PW-11, a private medical practitioner who assisted PW-10 in conducting post mortem examination and the investigating oﬃcer-PW.14. For arriving at a just conclusion, it is necessary to summarise their evidence which is extracted below: PW.1, Panchayat Secretary, village Nagunoor who set the criminal law into motion by lodging a report – Ex.P.1 stated that on 19.03.2002 in the morning hours at 6.00 AM some villagers of Nagunoor came and informed him that a dead body of female person was lying in SRSP D89 canal at 2 km thoom No.4A at the outskirts of Nagunoor Village. On verifying the same through village Sunkari i.e. Mallaiah, he came to the scene of oﬀence and found the deceased women aged 18 years dead and accordingly he lodged the report. PW.2, mother of the deceased stated that the marriage of the deceased was performed with one Gandham Narayana and due to some diﬀerences between them, she kept the deceased in her house. The deceased was preparing for 10th class examinations. The house of the accused is situated near to their house and he kept his eyes on the deceased and would not allow joining the company of her husband and he used to take the deceased outside now and then and tried to force her deceased daughter to live with him. On 18.03.2002 one day prior to the death of the deceased, the accused and his muslim friend came to her house on a motorcycle and asked the deceased to follow him and forced her, at that time, the accused was in full drunken condition and again at 8.00 PM he visited the house in a drunken condition with toddy bottle and forced the deceased to follow him and threatened and when she pleaded not to take her daughter with him and touched his feet, the accused threatened to kill her and took the deceased along with him. On the next day morning, she came to know about the death of her daughter. She deposed in the cross-examination that she did not state to the police that on 18.03.2002 at 4.00 PM the accused came along with his muslim friend, and threatened his daughter to follow him and again the accused came on 8.00 PM and took her daughter with him. She also stated that as PW-7 is a bad fellow, she allowed the accused to meet her daughter. PW.3, the sister of the deceased also stated in similar lines with that of PW.2 and she stated that the accused used to take the deceased to his home and used to enjoy her. Her sister refused to oblige him on some times and some disputes arose in that regard. PW-6 in whose house the accused and the deceased resided deposed in his evidence that on 18.03.2002 at 10.30 PM the accused and the deceased were there in his house up to 10.30 p.m. and there was a quarrel between them on that night and they left the house after 10.30 PM and did not turn up. On the next day morning, he came to know through newspaper about the murder of the deceased. PW.10, doctor, who conducted the postmortem examination over the dead body of the deceased deposed in his evidence that he issued Ex.P.15 postmortem report. PW-11, the doctor who assisted PW-10 at the time of conducting post mortem examination over the dead body of the deceased deposed in her evidence that on the basis of the F.S.L. report Ex.P-16, she gave her ﬁnal opinion Ex.P-18 and Ex.P-17 is the observation reported issued by her. She deposed in her cross-examination that she did not ﬁnd any injuries on the private parts of the deceased and the semen and spermatozoa were not found on items 1, 5, 7 and 8 which is noted as per the F.S.L. report Ex.P-16. PW.14, the investigating oﬃcer deposed in his evidence that PW.2 did not state in her statement that on 18.03.2002 the accused came to her house along with muslim on a motorcycle and asked the deceased to get ready, that again he will come by 8.00 PM and took her away and she also did not state that the deceased was in fear and requested PW.2 at least give a report to the police and she did not state that she touched the feet of the accused not to spoil the life of the deceased. 9. The evidence adduced by the prosecution goes to show that the deceased was a married woman and was living separately from her husband due to the disputes between them and was living with her parents. After scrutinizing the entire evidence on record, we are of the view that there is no evidence to show that the accused harassed the deceased for satisfying his sexual desire and also threatened her with dire consequences. There is also no evidence that on the date of the incident, the accused took the deceased from the house of PW-2 and when she failed to fulﬁll his desire, he committed rape on her and killed her. There is also no evidence to show that the accused had a suspicion against the deceased that she had an illicit intimacy with PW-7 and on the said suspicion, he killed the deceased. Further, the prosecution failed to establish that the deceased developed illicit intimacy with PW.7 and accused developed a grouse against her and the same is the motive to kill the deceased. There is no evidence on record to show that PW-7 and the deceased were close to each other, much less to say that they had any illicit intimacy. PWs.2 and 3 did not speak about her developing illicit intimacy with PW.7. The prosecution also examined PW.7 to prove that he had any sexual relationship with the deceased, but he did not support the case of prosecution. The DNA report Ex.P.21 also does not help the case of the prosecution as the report has concluded by saying that DNA proﬁle could not be obtained from item No.2 i.e. the green colour Pyjama of the deceased to compare with item No.1 which is the blood sample collected from the accused. When there was a missing link to connect the accused with the commission of the oﬀence, the theory of the prosecution that the accused and the deceased were last seen together by PW-6 also doubtful. Therefore, accused is entitled to beneﬁt of doubt and accordingly, the learned Sessions Judge rightly disbelieved the case of the prosecution and there are no compelling reasons to come to a diﬀerent conclusion to reverse the acquittal order passed by the learned Sessions Judge. Under the circumstances referred to above, the order of acquittal passed by the learned Sessions Judge cannot be interfered with. 10. The appeal fails and the same is accordingly dismissed. ________________ A. GOPAL REDDY, J _______________ R. KANTHA RAO, J Date: 17-11-2011 kvrm/ccm HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A.GOPAL REDDY AND HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE R.KANTHA RAO CRIMINAL APPEAL No.130 of 2008 (Division Bench Judgment delivered by Hon’ble Sri Justice AGR,J) DATED: 17.11.2011 [1] AIR 1990 SC 79