Judgment:
M.K. Chawla, J.
(1) (RULE D.B.).-This is an appeal tiled against the order of learned Additional Sessions Judge, convicting the appellant u/s 302 Indian Penal Code . and sentencing him to imprisonment for life, by his order dated 11-12-1986. The brief facts of the case are:
(2) Shri Ravinder Goswamy, Inspector, Desu (P.W. II) was present, near the Railway Station, Outer Ring Road, to execute electrification work, when at 10.30 A.M. he saw a dead body of a woman lying near the bridge Along with the railway lines. He immediately informed the Duty Officer H. C. Ram Kumar (PW-13) posted at police post Chowk Makbara. The Head Constable in turn, conveyed the information to S.I. Tapraj Singh (PW-15), Duty Officer at Police Station Adarsh Nagar. He recorded this information in .the Daily Diary at Seriall No 5-A. Its copy (Public Witness -1510 was entrusted to Si Bhoop Singh (Public Witness -17) to look into the matter. Bhoop Singh Along with other police officers went to the Railway bridge where he met Hari Singh and his son Raghbir Singh, Public Witness s. Hari Singh identified the dead body as that of his daughter Santosh wife of accused Ved Prakash. The S.I. recorded the statement of Hari Singh (Public Witness -l/D) underneath which he made his endorsement (Public Witness -15/A) and sent the Ruqa to the police Station for registration of the case. S.I. Tapraj Singh recorded the Fir (Public Witness -15/B) and sent its copy to S.I. Bhoop Singh for further investigation.
(3) Bhoop Singh prepared the Inquest Report (Public Witness -17/A) and sent the dead body to the mortuary for post-mortem examination with his application Public Witness -17/C through Constable Mehar Singh (PW-14). He also prepared the site plan of the spot (Public Witness -17/B). By that time, S.H.O. Roop Chand (Public Witness -19) had reached there and took over the investigation.
(4) On 26-12-84, Inspector Roop Chand Along with S.I. Bhoop Singh went out to search the accused. They were able to locate him near village Badii while he was coming out of the village on his cycle. He was apprehended, his cycle, the blood-stayed pant (P-2) and underwear (P-l) which he was wearing at that time were taken into possession. On interrogation, the accused made the disclosure statement (Public Witness -17/D) and led the Police party to the place of crime and then to a mazar near Hyderpur canal. At the pointing out of the accused, the Inspector took into possession a handkerchief which had a currency note tied at one end and two keys from near the mazar, which was taken into possession vide Memo. Ex. Public Witness -7/E. Thereafter, the accused pointed out the factory where he Along with his wife had stayed during the night. Rajinder Kumar Public Witness -8 present there produced a chhuri (P-3) which was taken into possession vide Memo. after sketch (Public Witness -7/B) was prepared.
(5) From near the spot, the Inspector had also taken into possession bloodstained pieces of stone, few broken pieces of bangles and a lady shawl. After the scene of occurrence was got photographed from various angles and its site plan prepared by the draftsman, the articles were sent to the office of the C.F.S.L. for serological examination. On the receipt of the reports, the Inspector completed the investigation and submitted the challan for trial
(6) In order to establish its case and to bring home the offence to the accused, the prosecution examined as many as 19 witnesses. The accused in his statement u/s 313 Criminal Procedure Code . admitted that he was married to Santosh deceased on. 11-3-84. He, however, denied giving her beating and making demands of money, etc. According to him. Santosh never lived with him at village Badii. While denying the allegations of the prosecution, he submitted that on 23-12-84, he had gone to his village Makroli which is about 80 Kms. from Delhi, to cast his vote in the general elections fixed for 24-12-84. He submitted that he was arrested by the Police on 25-12-84 from his village Makroli and brought to Delhi. According to him, he was not present on the day, time and place of the incident at Delhi. In his defense, he produced Lakhi Ram (DW-1) and Ved Prakash (DW-2) to depose that the accused had come to village Makroli a day before the elections. He was the polling agent of a Congress-1 candidate in the harijan locality and that the Delhi Police took him away a day after the elections.
(7) Learned Additional Sessions Judge on consideration of the evidence cm record, concluded that the charge framed against the accused u/s 302 Indian Penal Code . for committing the murder of his wife Santosh stands proved to the hilt, and sentenced him lo imprisonment for life vide order dated 11-12-86. This very order is under challenge in this appeal of Ved Prakash.
(8) It is not disputed that there is no direct evidence of eyewitness in this case and it is based only on circumstantial evidence. The law regarding circumstantial evidence is well settled. There should be a chain of circumstances, each satisfactorily proved and must be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. Again those circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency, and they should be such as to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. In other words, there must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability, the act must have been done by the accused. Any missing link may be fatal to the prosecution case.
(9) With this background, we have to carefully analyze the prosecution evidence which must stand or fall on its own legs and cannot be allowed to derive any strength from the weakness of the defense. On the basis of the evidence proved on record, the court below enumerated the following circumstances, alleged to have been proved by the prosecution and on that basis come to the conclusion that the prosecution has been able to establish the complete chain of events, proving the guilt of the accused :-
(1)The accused was having strained relations with his wife Santosh;
(2)The wife of the accused was not living with him but was living in the house of her father at Jehangirpuri, Delhi;
(3)On 24-12-84, Santosh did not return from work. Hari Singh, father of Santosh searched for her and even had gone to the house of the accused late in the evening but the house was found locked;
(4)On 24-12-84, the accused was seen assaulting his wife and running after her with a chhuri and she had received injuries on her face and aim etc. :
(5)Smt. Santosh in order to thwart the assault, jumped in the canal and when Rajinder Kumar, Public Witness , came to her rescue the accused kept on saying that she should be allowed to die ;
(6)Chhuri was taken from the accused by Rajinder Kumar and his companion and later on produced before the Police;
(7)The accused stayed for the night at the shelter provided by Rajender Kumar and his companion and in the morning, the accused did not want to go away without taking his wife and miss the opportunity to kill her;
(8)During the night, the accused prevailed upon-his wife and won her confidence and he also made Rajinder Kumar, Public Witness , to believe that there was a compromise between them and the accused took Santosh away with him early in the morning on 25-12-84.
(10) The first three conclusions even though do not form part of the chain of circumstances pointing an accusing finger towards the accused' but they appear to have been brought on record through the evidence of Public Witness -1 Hari Singh, father of the deceased Santosh to prove the motive for the crime. It is an admitted case that Santosh Kumari even though was married to the accused in the year 1984, but was living separately from her husband for the last 3 months. On the question of giving or beating and demand of dowry the only statement of Hari Singh is to the following effect :-
'The accused used to give beating to my daughter and ask her to bring money from us i.e. her parents, or he shall kill her. I brought my daughter to my house.'
In his cross-examination, Hari Singh himself' admitted that he did not disclose this fact in his statement u/s 161 Criminal Procedure Code . (PW-1 /D), on the basis of which the F.I.R. was recorded. Furthermore, he also admitted that after the marriage, his daughter had been visiting him occasionally and then joining the accused at his house in village Kakrola. Hari Singh named one Shama of Badii who had given him the information that the accused was out to kill his daughter, and for that reason, he had brought his daughter to his house. But unfortunately, this Mrs. Shama has not been produced to corroborate this version.
(11) Public Witness -3 Raghbir Singh is the brother of the deceased Santosh Kumari. He was frank enough to admit in his cross-examination that the accused did not demand any money from his father after the marriage of his sister Santosh. Almost similar is the statement of Public Witness -4 Harkesh, a next door neighbour of the accused at village Badli. He did not find anything abnormal with the behavior of the accused towards the wile at any point of time. Public Witness -5 Sham Lal even though claimed to have visited the house of the accused at Badli only once, deposed that on that day, there was a quarrel between the husband and the wife and before leaving, Santosh asked him to inform her parents. Even he dad not mention the date or the day when he conveyed this information to the parents of Santosh. Public Witness -12 Jagdish is an other uncle of the deceased, e also has not been able to tell the month, date or the time when he visited the house of the. accused and was told by Santosh that her husband used to give her beating and raised demands for money. He admitted having not told anything to his brother i.e. Hari Singh. Public Witness -7 Vijay Singh is the real uncle of the deceased. His house is in the same street where the house of Hari Singh is situated. He does not talk about the strained relations between the couple or the demand of dowry by the accused. He is the witness whose statement u/s 161 Criminal Procedure Code . has not been recorded even though was a party to the recovery of the various articles from the spot and the arrest of the accused, and thereafter on his pointing out the recovery of the handkerchief. He is the witness who is alleged to have gone to the police station to identity the dead body of his niece Santosh, whereas her father Hari Singh had already identified her at the spot and from there itself, the dead body had been sent to the mortuary.
(12) The evidence of none of these witnesses can be used as a basis to prove the strained relations between the couple and the demand of dowry which is alleged to them motive of this crime.
(13) For the remaining circumstances, we have only to peruse the statement of Public Witness -8 Rajinder Kumar, who Along with his friend Moti Lal is the chance witness to see the accused running after his wife and causing her injuries with a sharp-edged weapon. According to this witness, after seeing a circus-show, at Inderlok, they were returning to their factory in Shalimar Bagh. It was about 10 P.M. when they saw the accused with a knife in his hand running after a girl who was crying for help near a mazar of a Sayed. In order to save herself, the girl jumped into the water. But this witness with the help of his friend rescued her and brought the couple to their factory where , he took over the chhuri from the accused. The girl was having the marks of bleeding knife injuries on her hand, arm and face. His further case is that the accused and the girl remained with them till 4 A.M. and thereafter they left the factory. On 26th December, 1984, the Police brought the accused in handcuffs and at that time, this witness produced the knife (P-3) which was taken into possession vide Memo. Public Witness -7/C after its sketch Public Witness -71B was prepared.
(14) He is a witness to prove the fact of having seen the couple together last time and the intention of the accused to kill her. However, this witness has let the prosecution down on each and every aspect for which be was made to depose. Firstly, Moti Lal has not been produced to corroborate this part of the version of Rajinder Kumar. Secondly, the so-called injuries by a sharp-edged weapon on the person of Santosh have nut been found by Public Witness -2 Dr. L.T. Ramani Thirdly, this witness did not report about this serious incident either to the Police or to the father of Santosh even though his name and address had been given to him by her. He also did not make any attempt to report about the incident or for keeping the couple in the factory, to his employer or any senior officer working in the factory. It is strange that even after the accused tried to kill his wife, the couple would stay and sleep together in the factory on the bedding brought by Moti Lal and in the morning, she would gladly agree to accompany her husband. This version, prima facie, appears to be improbable.
(15) The story of use of chhuri, its production and taking into possession by the Police is not convincing. According to Rajinder Kumar, the accused has caused bleeding injuries on the person of his wife Santosh, with this chhuri which was taken over by him in the factory. This very chhuri was later on brought by Moti Lal from his adjoining factory and produced before the police on 26-12-84. Unfortunately, this chhuri after it was converted info sealed parcel was not sent to the office of the C.F.S.L. for serological examination for reasons best known to the prosecution Even otherwise, as noted earlier, no injury by a sharp-edged weapon has been found on the person of Santosh by Dr. L .T. Ramani. All injuries were found to have been caused by a blunt force and the injury on the skull was found sufficient to cause the death in the ordinary course of nature. This injury in the opinion of the doctor was caused by the pieces of stone P-1 to P-3 which were recovered from near the body of Santosh. The introduction of chhuri in the commission of the crime has been done to achieve some object which stands frustrated by the medical evidence.
(16) In view of the above said circumstances, we are of the opinion that no reliance can be placed on the evidence of Public Witness -8 Rajinder Kumar who has been joined to support the evidence of last seen together and the intention of the accused to kill his wife.
(17) In a passing reference, we may also point out that at the time. of the arrest of the accused, his blood-stained pant and an underwear were also taken into possession and sent to the office of C.F.S.L. Along with other articles. Even though human blood was found on the pant but it gave no reaction while the underwear had no blood at all. The other recovered articles including the stone pieces, the lady shirt, salwar. brazier indicated 'O' group which was that of the deceased. This fact also does not support the prosecution story as put forth before the Court.
(18) The recoveries of the other articles either from the place of occurrence or at the pointing out of the accused also do not inspire confidence inasmuch as on all the occasions, only Vijay Singh was joined and made the witness of the recoveries. The 1.0. at no point of time tried to join any independent witness of the locality even though they were readily available.
(19) The cumulative effect of the evidence discussed above goes to show that the prosecution has miserably failed to complete the chain of circumstances to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved i.e. the guilt of the accused. There is no chain what to talk of a complete chain of circumstances which are required to be of conclusive nature. On each aspect, this chain stands broken leaving wide gaps which the prosecution has not been able to fill in.
(20) In the result, we accept the appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence awarded to the accused by Addl. Sessions Judge, Delhi, on 11th December, 1986. The appellant be released forthwith unless he is wanted in some other case.