Case: Ashok Kumar Chatterjee Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh

2. The facts of the case briefly stated are as followsThe deceased Ravindra, who was 19 years of age at the time of occurrence in 1976 was the son of Pritosh Kumar Chatterjee who was employed in Bhatapara as Laboratory Assistant in GovernmentHigher Secondary School. He hailed from West Bengal. The appellant, aged about 22 years, is a cousin of Pritosh3. Pritosh was living with his wife (PW 2), his only daughter, aged about 15 years namely Supriya @ Bina and the appellant in Bhatapara in the house of PW 11. The deceased who was a student in Raipur College had come to Bhatapara during the summer vacation4. Though the motive for the appellant to murder Ravindra, as put forth now by the prosecution, is that there was a quarrel between Ravindra and the appellant on some money matters, the real motive seems to be a story of shameful intrigue as disclosed from the evidence of PW 2, the wife of Pritosh. According to PW 2, her husband Pritosh was a man of very bad and indecent character and he was living in a private hell of his own satisfying his lust with his own daughter, Supriya. In thealso PW 2 affirms that her husband had illicit relations with Supriya. On account of this abnormal sexual and obnoxious behaviour of Pritosh, there used to be frequent quarrels between PW 2 and her husband. It further transpires from the evidence that the appellant who was none other than the cousin brother of Pritosh, was also making overtures to Supriya and this was resented by the deceased Ravindra who was in the prime of his youth5. During that summer vacation, PW 2 along with her daughter Supriya had been to her village Gangoria, leaving her husband, the appellant and the deceased at Bhatapara. Some time later, Pritosh also come to the village where PW 2 and her daughter Supriya were staying. After the arrival of Pritosh, PW 2 left the village taking her daughter with her to Bhadria by travelling in a bus. But even before she reached Bhadria, she sent her daughter back to Gangoria from Barasal, probably a place midway between Gangoria and Bhadria. In Gangoria, PW 2s mother and brother were living6. Pritosh came to Bhadria from Bhatapara. By that time Supriya also came there. PW 2 took a strong objection to the conduct of her husband coming to Bhadria and had a quarrel with him. Then she sent Supriya back to Gangoria on the very next day of the arrival of her husband. Thereafter PW 2 and her husband went to the village Mongram where the appellant also joined with them. It may be stated that the appellants parents and brothers were residing at Mongram. At Mongram, PW 2 made enquiries with the appellant about her son Ravindra to which the appellant replied that Ravindra had gone to Bombay in search of some employment. Leaving the appellant and Pritosh at Mongram PW 2 went Gangoria. After some days PW 2 with her mother came to Bhatapara and asked her husband and the appellant about her son Ravindra to which both of them replied that Ravindra had gone in search of a job somewhere. PW 2 asked them to make a search for her son and if they failed to do so, she would herself make a search by handing over a photo of her son to theBe that as it may, it appears from the evidence that the deceased was last seen with the appellant in Bhatapara on June 8, 1976. On June 11, 1976, a headless body of a male without the limbs was found by PW 1 and the villagers in the field at Bhatapara. Some of the limbs of the body were also found at different places on the same day. At about 8.15 a. m. on June 11, 1976, PW 1 lodged a report (Ex.before PW 20, the then Section House Officer of Bhatapara Police Station. On the basis of Ex.the first information report, Ex.was prepared8. PW 20 took up investigation, proceeded to the scene, held inquest over the headless body and the limbs and prepared the inquest report Ex.He also prepared a sketch of the scene Ex.and seized a rope, a pair of shoes and a cycle lying there9. He sent that trunk and the limbs forexamination. On the very next day i. e. on June 12, 1976 on information, near the railway station he seized the decapitated head, over which he held an inquest and prepared the report Ex.He caused the photograph of the head to be taken under Ex.Then he sent the head forPW 10, the Medical Officer who conducted the autopsy on the headless trunk and the decapitated head opined that both were parts of the same body of a male of fair complexion of an estimated age of 17 to 25 years. According to the prosecution, the dead body was of Ravindra who of a fair complexion, aged 19 years at that time. Exs.and 47 are thecertificates. PW 10 states the body had not decomposed11. PW 21, at the instruction of PW 20, inspected the house of the deceased and drew a sketch Ex.He found blood stains at wooden door at three points which he scraped12. While the matter stood thus, PW 2 not being satisfied with the reply of her husband and the appellant both at Mongram and thereafter at Bhatapara about the missing of her son Ravindra, went to the police station of Bhatapara and handed over two photographs of her son Ex.3 and also gave a report Ex.dated July 13, 197613. On the same day i. e. on July 13, 1976 after PW 2 had submitted the report Ex.to the police, Pritosh committed suicide by throwing himself before a running train14. PWs 6 and 7 who were the Lecturers of the High School in which Pritosh was employed and in which the deceased studied and completed has matriculation, came to the police station and informed the suicidal death of Pritosh to PW 30 (Station House Officer). While PWs 6 and 7 were returning from the station, they saw the appellant entering the police station. The appellant told both these two witnesses that he knew of the death of Pritosh and further confessed that he was the person who murdered the deceased Ravindra and added that he had come there to surrender before the police15. PW 30 arrested the accused, examined him and recorded his confessional statement in the presence of PWs 6 and 7. In pursuance of that statement, several articles and letters were seized. On June, 16, 1977, certain applications written by Pritosh were also recovered. During the inspection of the house, PW 30 found blood stains on the walls of the house which he scraped and recovered Ex.is the recovery mahazor. Among the letters seized, Exs.15 (letters written in Bengali) and Ex.(letters written in Hindi) and the envelopes Exs.32 were found. Exs.63 are the specimen Hindi writings of the appellant and Exs.20 are the specimen Bengali writing of the appellant. These letters along with specimen handwriting were sent to PWs 22 and 23 who were the Additional and Assistant Station Examiners of Questioned Documents (i. e. handwriting experts) for comparison of the writings of these letters with the specimen writings of the appellant. The experts on comparison have opined that all the seized letters were in the handwriting of the appellant16. Besides the opinion of the experts, PW 2 who claims to have studied up to 3rd standard and to have been conversant with the handwriting of the appellant also has deposed that the writings in Exs.9 andare in the handwriting of the appellant. In Exs.15 (addressed to his father), and in Ex.(addressed to Jamai Baboo), the appellant had given the detail of his love towards Supriya (@ Bina) and of his guilt of murdering the deceased. It may be pointed out that these letters were not posted. Exs.31 (dated nil) found in the postal covers (Exs.2) were addressed to the Collector and the Station House Officer but they too were not posted. The contents of those letters reveal that the appellant wanted to put an end to his life by committing suicide for the sin of murder he committed. It seems that the appellant could not muster courage to end his life and so surrendered before the police. Before leaving for the police station, the appellant wrote Ex.a postcard addressed to his father and posted the same. This postcard (Ex.written in Bengali was posted on July 13, 1976 at Bhatapara and it reached his father in Kalopur village on July 17, 1976. This is an important document about which we shall discuss in the ensuing portion of the judgment17. During the investigation, a knife and some letters inclusive of Ex.were seized from the house of the father of the appellant in Kalopur village by PW 18. Exs.6 andare the letters proved to be in the handwriting of Pritosh through PWs 2, 3 and 22. The contents of these letters show that after Pritosh and the appellant returned to Bhatapara from West Bengal the appellant confessed to Pritosh about his involvement in the murder of the deceased, and Pritosh who loved his son Ravindra and the appellant, without disclosing this confession of the appellant, decided to put an end to his life and ultimately did so. Two other letters (Exs.3) further show that at the initial stage both Pritosh and the appellant decided to commit suicide. However, the sequence of events reveal that Pritosh alone committed suicide after his wife lodged the complaint with the police. We may point out at this juncture that though the letters written by Pritosh cannot be made use of as legal evidence against the appellant, we are mentioning those letters and their contents only for the proper understanding of the sequence of events and the complete narration of the prosecution case18. Exs.85 are the reports of the Chemical Examiner and Serologist respectively. As per the report of the Serologist the scrapings of the wall of the house and the pillow recovered from the house were stained with human blood. The blood stains on some of the items of the properties were disintegrated and as such their origin could not be determined. After completing the investigation PW 30 filed theon October 28, 197619. The appellant in his statement under Section 313 CPC has denied his complicity in the offence in question and added that he does not know anything about the letters produced by the prosecution and that he was tortured and pressurised to write certain letters and documents inclusive of a postcard at the police station and under pressure his signatures were obtained thereon20. The trial court, as pointed supra, convicted the appellant under Sections 302 and 201 IPC and sentenced him to death and to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 3 years. The High Court for the reasons assigned in its judgment affirmed the convictions recorded by the trial court but modified the sentence of death to imprisonment for life while retaining the rigorous imprisonment for 3 years under Section 201 IPC

Court's reasoning:
Evidently Pritosh who on being put to painful ignominy by his obnoxious conduct of having sexual relationship with his own daughter should have resorted to putting an end to his life apprehending that the whole shameful intrigue would come out and he would be exposed to the public. PW 2 by then had not come out with the story of her husbands abnormal sexual behaviour. Therefore, the police in order to unearth the real cause for the suicidal death Pritosh would have taken all the inmates of the house to the police station and subjected them to intensive and searching examination. It was only during such examination of these witnesses over the cause of the death of Pritosh, the whole truth about this case came out. It is not surprising that the appellant would have been in an agitated and perplexed state of mind because he was in exclusive knowledge of his own conduct of having committed the murder of the deceased which led to the suicidal death of Pritosh who on account of his uncivilized and filthy conduct in our opinion was only a beast in the humanhave carefully scanned these admissions of PW 2 but found that these admissions could not in any way affect the veracity of the prosecution case. As we have pointed out Pritosh committed suicide in very tragic circumstances by throwing himself before a running train only after PW 2 had approached the police by lodging Ex.and handing over two photographs of her son with the request to make an investigation about the missing of her son.Evidently Pritosh who on being put to painful ignominy by his obnoxious conduct of having sexual relationship with his own daughter should have resorted to putting an end to his life apprehending that the whole shameful intrigue would come out and he would be exposed to the public. PW 2 by then had not come out with the story of her husbands abnormal sexual behaviour. Therefore, the police in order to unearth the real cause for the suicidal death Pritosh would have taken all the inmates of the house to the police station and subjected them to intensive and searching examination. It was only during such examination of these witnesses over the cause of the death of Pritosh, the whole truth about this case came out. It is not surprising that the appellant would have been in an agitated and perplexed state of mind because he was in exclusive knowledge of his own conduct of having committed the murder of the deceased which led to the suicidal death of Pritosh who on account of his uncivilized and filthy conduct in our opinion was only a beast in the humanform37. Hence we hold that this argument of the earned counsel does not merit consideration38. For all the discussions made above we are of the view that there are number of impelling circumstances attending this case leading to an irresistible and inescapable conclusion that it was the appellant and the appellant alone who caused the death of the deceased, Ravindra in a very ghastly manner by cutting him into pieces and throwing his various parts of body at different parts of the city, Bhatapara and there cannot be any dispute that thismurder is diabolical in conception and extremely cruel in execution. The evaluation of the findings of the High Court does not suffer from any illegality, or manifest error or perversity nor it has overlooked or wrongly discarded any vital piece of evidence.