Case: GORUSU NAGARAJU Vs. THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

1. This appeal is filed by the accused from jail through the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee against the final judgment and order dated 15.12.2006 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad in Criminal Appeal No.955 of 2005 whereby the High Court affirmed the judgment and orderpassed by the IInd Additional District and Sessions Judge, East Godavari at Rajamundary in Sessions Case No.193 of 2000 by which thewas convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as "IPC") and under Section 235(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as "the Cr.P.C.") and sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302 IPC with a fine ofin default, to further undergo simple imprisonment for one month and for the offence under Section 201 IPC, he was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years with a fine of Rs.100/in default to further undergo simple imprisonment for one month. Both the sentences were directed to run concurrently.2. For the disposal of the appeal, few relevant facts need to be mentioned hereinbelow.3. The appellantalong with four accused persons5) were prosecuted for commission of the offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 201 of IPC for committing murder of oneDesineedi Venkateswararao @ Venkatesh. The IInd Additional District & Sessions Judge by his judgment and order dated 10.06.2005, convicted the appellantand sentenced him to undergo imprisonment for life under Section 302 IPC and further to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years under Section 201 IPC and acquitted three accused, namely,So far asis concerned, since he was absconding, his trial was separated.4. Against the said order, the appellant filed an appeal in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh challenging his conviction and sentence. The State, however, did not file any appeal questioning the order in respect of acquittal of5 and, therefore, the acquittal order became final.5. The High Court, by impugned judgment, dismissed the appeal filed by theand upheld theconviction and sentence, which has given rise to filing of this appeal by way of special leave by the appellant before this Court.

Court's reasoning:
11. The prosecution with the aid of 33 witnesses proved the aforementioned seven circumstances. It is true that out of 33 witnesses, some turned hostile but those, who did not turn hostile and maintained consistent version of the aforementioned seven circumstances, in our opinion, their evidence was rightly relied on for sustaining the conviction.12. That apart, in our considered opinion, the seven circumstances noticed and relied on by the prosecution were material circumstances and, therefore, rightly made basis to connect the appellant with the commission of the crime in question. Indeed, the chain of events which led to death of the deceased was established without any break implicating the appellant with the chain of events.13. Learned counsel for the appellant wanted to go through the entire evidence and he actually did it but could not point out any material contradiction or inconsistency in evidence. It is a well settled principle of criminal law that some minor contradiction or inconsistency in evidence cannot affect the material evidence and such contradiction or inconsistency cannot be made basis to discard the whole evidence as unreliable. It is much more so when the two Courts below took note of the said evidence and discarded it being wholly immaterial.14. We are, therefore, not impressed by the submissions urged by the learned counsel of the appellant as it did not make out any case of acquittal of the appellant from the offences in question.