Case: Ganga Bai Vs. State Of Rajasthan

2. In appeal, the High Court acquitted Udai Lal and Daulat Ram holding that the offences against them were not proved beyond doubt. However, in the case of the appellant, the conviction was confirmed with no modification in sentence3. The incident is of the year 1999. First Information Report was registered on the complaint given by PW-29. It was stated that while he was in the field gazing cattle, he heard PW-3 crying loudly of having seen a dead body of a lady lying in a trench. Along with PW-4, they also found the dead bodies of two children dumped in the trench. On 06.09.1999, the appellant and Udai Lal were arrested, and Daulat Ram was arrested on 09.09.1999. All of them were charged under Section 302 read with Section 34 and Section 201 IPC

Reasoning: 8. It has come out in the evidence ofi Devi, who is the wife ofh Kumar, the landlord of thel (son of the appellant), thata Bai used to visit thea in her room. The said witness stated that she had seen Sunanda with appellant before her disappearance. It has also come out in her evidence that the appellant, after the incident, came back to her, paid the rent and took away the belongings of the deceased.Naresh Kumar has supported the version ofis Sultana who has also stated that the deceased along with her children was seen with the appellant in the market and the deceased had told her that the appellant was taking them to Morvan.d of Sultana has supported her version. Thus, on the basis of the evidence of5 to 8, both the courts below have come to the conclusion that all the deceased were last seen with the appellant9. It has also come out from the evidence of5 that the appellant was not happy with the deceased for two reasons, viz., (i) she had already been married to another person and he had left her with her two children born to him and (ii) she belonged to a different caste. Therefore, if the appellant had accepted them in their family, they would have been cast out from the village. It is because of that only the deceased along with her family had left the appellants house and stayed in the rented accommodation provided by. It has also come out from her evidence that the deceased had given the phone number of paternal house and family photo of the deceased along with her husband and children to her to be handed over to her father in case she did not return. Yet another incriminating circumstance is the conduct of the appellant, after the incident, of settling the rent with5 and removing belongings of the deceased10. On the second circumstance on verification of the place of incident by the appellant, the High Court rightly discarded the same holding that the Police had already identified the place where the dead bodies were dumped. The other circumstantial evidence against the appellant is on the recovery of weapon of offence. It has come in evidence that the recovery was effected only on the basis of the disclosure made by the appellant as per. It has come in evidence thata contained human blood. The third piece of circumstantial evidence found against the appellant is the recovery ofbelonging to her as per. The appellant could not give any explanation of the presence of human blood on her clothes recovered as per. Though the anklet, said to be belonging to the, was also recovered pursuant to her disclosure, the High Court has discarded the same on the ground that there was no proper identification11. Having gone through the records, we find it difficult to be persuaded to take a different view on the evidence against the appellant which according to both the trial court and the High Court formed an unbroken chain which led only to one hypothesis, viz., the involvement of the appellant in the offences under Section 302 and Section 201 IPC. It has to be specially noted that even under Section 313 IPC statement, the appellant did not have any explanation on the presence of human blood stains on her clothes which were duly recovered on her disclosureThough we find that the acquittal made by the High Court could require a revisit, in view of the fact that there is no appeal by the State against the acquittal of Udai Lal and that the incident is of the year 1999, we do not propose to pursue the matter as against Udai Lal. However, we may state that only because Udai Lal was acquitted, in view of the clinching evidence on the involvement of the appellant in the offences of murder and destruction of evidence charged against her, she is not entitled for a similar treatment as that of Udai Lal. Merely because one or more of those charged with the substantial offences and also charged under Section 34 IPC have been acquitted, the one in the group who shared the common intention, in whose case there is conclusive evidence of direct involvement, cannot claim parity.