Beohar High Court
Case Details
1 VISHAKHA BEOHAR Digitally signed by VISHAKHA BEOHAR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR NAFR CRA No. 307 of 2019 1 - Ramlakhan @ Bhuruwa Yadav S/o Jaitram Yadav Aged About 41 Years R/o Village Tekapar Kala, P. S. Chhuikhadan, District Rajnandgaon Chhattisgarh, District : Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh versus ... Appellant 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The P. S. Chhuikhadan, District Rajnandgaon Chhattisgarh, District : Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh ---- Respondent For Appellant : Mr. Deepak Diwakar, Advocate on behalf of Mr. Abhishek Sharma, Advocate For State : Ms. Nand Kumari Kashyap, P.L. Division Bench Hon'ble Mrs. Justice Rajani Dubey and Hon'ble Mr. Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad Order on Board 18.06.2025 Per, Amitendra Kishore Prasad, J. 2 1. This appeal arises out of the judgment of conviction and sentence dated 02.11.2018 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Khairagarh, District Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, in Sessions Trial No. 06/2018, whereby the appellant has been convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as "IPC") and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment with a fine of ₹500/-, in default of payment of fine to undergo rigorous imprisonment for six months. 2. Case of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 23.12.2017, deceased Anjani Verma had gone to her agricultural field in the morning to irrigate the crops. Later in the day, one Saraswati Verma of the same village saw the deceased- Anjani lying in the field and informed her father. Thereafter, with the help of other family members and villagers, deceased- Anjani was taken to CHC, Chhuikhadan for treatment, where she was declared dead by the doctor. During the course of investigation, accused/appellant was taken into custody and his memorandum statement was recorded vide Ex.P-9 where he has stated that he was having an illicit relationship with the deceased and deceased was demanding Rs.1,500/- from him and when he refused to give her the said amount, she threatened him to report the matter to the police, due to this reason, he strangulated her in the field. Thereafter, merg
Facts
intimation was recorded vide Ex.P-6, FIR was lodged against the appellant vide Ex.P-16 and spot map was prepared vide Ex.P-4. Inquest proceedings were conducted vide Ex.P-1 and dead body 3 of the deceased was sent for postmortem examination which was conducted by PW-16 Dr. Manish Baghel, who has proved the postmortem report Ex.P-15. According to postmortem report, cause of death of deceased was asphyxia due to throtling and mode of death was homicidal in nature. From the possession of the appellant, one cycle and cash of Rs.1,000/- were seized vide Ex.P-10. 3. Statements of witnesses were recorded under Section 161 of Cr.P.C. After completion of investigation, the appellant was charge-sheeted before the jurisdictional criminal Court and the case was committed to the trial Court for hearing and disposal in accordance with law, in which appellant/accused abjured his guilt and entered into defence by stating that he has not committed the offence. 4. The prosecution in order to bring home the offence, examined as many as 17 witnesses in support of its case and exhibited 17 documents i.e. Exs.P-1 to P-17. However, the appellant in his defence has examined none but exhibited six documents i.e. Exs.D-1 to D-6. 5. The trial Court, after completion of trial and upon appreciation of oral and documentary evidence, by its impugned judgment, convicted and sentenced the appellant as mentioned in the opening paragraph of this judgment against which he has preferred the instant appeal under Section 374(2) of the CrPC. 4
Legal Reasoning
It may be noted here that this Court indicated that the circumstances concerned 'must or should' and not 'may be' established. There is not only a grammatical but a legal distinction between 'may be proved' and 'must be or should be proved' as was held by this Court in Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra, (1973) 2 SCC 793 where the following observations were made: 9 "Certainly, it is a primary principle that the accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a court can convict and the mental distance between 'may be' and 'must be' is long and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions." (2) The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say. they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty, (3) the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency. (4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved, and (5) there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. 154. These five golden principles, if we may say so, constitute the panchsheel of the proof of a case based on circumstantial evidence.” 24. In the present case, several prosecution witnesses including PW- 1, PW-2, PW-3, and PW-4 are hearsay witnesses and did not witness the incident. No witness has deposed having seen the appellant with the deceased on the date of incident. Therefore, the so-called “last seen” theory is completely absent. 10 25. PW-9 and PW-15 have spoken about an alleged extrajudicial confession. However, both have admitted that such confession was made in the presence of police officials. 26. Thus, from the aforesaid law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, it is clear that the confession before police or in their presence cannot be treated as an independent, voluntary extrajudicial confession. There is nothing on record to show that the confession was made freely and voluntarily, or that it inspires confidence. 27. Now, the only recovery pursuant to the memorandum under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act is a bicycle and ₹1,000 cash (Exs. P/10 and P/11). However, no evidence has been brought forth to establish any nexus between the recovered articles and the crime. 28. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Manoj Kumar Soni vs. State of Madhya Pradesh reported in (2023) SCC OnLine SC 984, has held that the disclosure statement cannot be the sole basis of conviction. The relevant paras are quoted hereinbelow:- “23. The law on the evidentiary value of disclosure statements under Section 27, Evidence Act made by the accused himself seems to be well- established. The decision of the Privy Council in Pulukuri Kotayya and others vs. King-Emperor1 holds the field even today wherein it was held that the provided 11946 SCC OnLine PC 47; AIR 1947 PC 67 11 information must be directly relevant to the discovered fact, including details about the physical object, its place of origin, and the accused person's awareness of these aspects. The Privy Council observed: The difficulty, however great, of proving that a fact discovered on information supplied by the accused is a relevant fact can afford no justification for reading into s. 27 something which is not there, and admitting in evidence a confession barred by s. 26. Except in cases in which the possession, or concealment, of an object constitutes the gist of the offence charged, it can seldom happen that information relating to the discovery of a fact forms the foundation of the prosecution case. It is only one link in the chain of proof, and the other links must be forged in manner allowed by law. 24. The law on the evidentiary value of disclosure statements of co- accused too is settled; the courts have hesitated to place reliance solely on disclosure statements of co-accused and used them merely to support the conviction or, as Sir Lawrence Jenkins observed in Emperor vs. Lalit Mohan Chuckerburty2, to “lend assurance to other evidence against a co- accused”. In Haricharan Kurmi vs. State of Bihar 3 , this Court, speaking through the Constitution Bench, elaborated upon the approach to be adopted by courts when dealing with disclosure statements: 13. …In dealing with a criminal case where the prosecution relies upon the confession of one 2(1911) ILR 38 Cal 559, page 588 3 AIR 1964 SC 1184 12 accused person against another accused person, the proper approach to adopt is to consider the other evidence against such an accused person, and if the said evidence appears to be satisfactory and the court is inclined to hold that the said evidence may sustain the charge framed against the said accused person, the court turns to the confession with a view to assure itself that the conclusion which it is inclined to draw from the other evidence is right. 25. In yet another case of discrediting a flawed conviction under Section 411, IPC, this Court, in Shiv Kumar vs. State of Madhya Pradesh4 overturned the conviction under Section 411, declined to place undue reliance solely on the disclosure statements of the co-accused, and held: 24. …, the disclosure statement of one accused cannot be accepted as a proof of the appellant having knowledge of utensils being stolen goods. The prosecution has also failed to establish any basis for the appellant to believe that the utensils seized from him were stolen articles. The factum of selling utensils at a lower price cannot, by itself, lead to the conclusion that the appellant was aware of the theft of those articles. The essential ingredient of mens rea is clearly not established for the charge under Section 411 IPC. The prosecution's evidence on this aspect, as they would speak of the character Gratiano in Merchant of Venice, can be appropriately described as, “you speak an infinite deal of nothing.” [William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act 1 Scene 1.]” 4 (2022) 9 SCC 676 13 29. In the matter of Navaneethakrishnan vs The State By Inspector Of Police reported in (2018) 16 SCC 161, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that mere recovery of articles which are not conclusively linked with the crime, or are of common usage, cannot form the basis of conviction in absence of other incriminating evidence. The relevant paragraphs are quoted hereinbelow:- “23) The law is well settled that each and every incriminating circumstance must be clearly established by reliable and clinching evidence and the circumstances so proved must form a chain of events from which the only irresistible conclusion about the guilt of the accused can be safely drawn and no other hypothesis against the guilt is possible. In a case depending largely upon circumstantial evidence, there is always a danger that conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof. The court must satisfy itself that various circumstances in the chain of events must be such as to rule out a reasonable likelihood of the innocence of the accused. When the important link goes, the chain of circumstances gets snapped and the other circumstances cannot, in any manner, establish the guilt of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt. The court has to be watchful and avoid the danger of allowing the suspicion to take the place of legal proof for sometimes, unconsciously it may happen to be a short step between moral certainty and legal proof. There is a long mental distance between 14 “may be true” and “must be true” and the same divides conjectures from sure conclusions. The Court in mindful of caution by the settled principles of law and the decisions rendered by this Court that in a given case like this, where the prosecution rests on the circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must place and prove all the necessary circumstances, which would constitute a complete chain without a snap and pointing to the hypothesis that except the accused, no one had committed the offence, which in the present case, the prosecution has failed to prove. Conclusion:- 24) In view of the foregoing discussion, we are of the considered opinion that both the courts below have erred in relying that part of the statement which can be termed as confession which were given to the police officer while they were in custody and it will be hit by Section 26 of the Indian Evidence Act,1872 and only that part of the statement which led to the discovery of various materials would be permissible.” 30. Thus, looking to the aforesaid law, the seizure in the present case does not strengthen the prosecution’s case. 31. The accused appellant was also examined under Section 313 of IPC in which he has categorically denied the allegations levelled against him and submitted that he has been falsely implicated due to suspicion of the husband of the deceased namely Raju Verma. 15 32. It is evident that the conviction of the appellant is based on circumstantial evidence that fails to establish a complete chain linking the appellant to the crime. The appellant has been made accused in this case on the basis of suspicion. It is a trite law that suspicion cannot take place of the truth unless and until proved by any cogent evidence. 33. In this regard, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Raghunatha and Another vs. The State of Karnataka in SLP (Criminal) No.6112/2022 has clearly observed that - “It is a settled principle that in a case based on circumstantial evidence, the circumstances must be fully established and must form a complete chain pointing only to the guilt of the accused. The facts established must be consistent with the accused’s guilt and should exclude every other possible hypothesis. Mere suspicion, however strong, cannot replace proof beyond reasonable doubt. An accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.” 34. It is a fundamental principle that the accused must be proved guilty, not merely may be proved guilty. There is a clear legal distinction between these terms. The facts established must be consistent only with the guilt of the accused and exclude any other reasonable explanation. The circumstances should exclude every possible hypothesis except the guilt of the accused. The evidence must form a complete chain that leaves no reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with innocence. Suspicion, 16 however strong, cannot replace proof beyond a reasonable doubt. An accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. 35. In the present case, the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of the appellant beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, this Court finds no valid grounds to convict the appellant. The trial court erred in convicting the appellant without credible and trustworthy evidence. The chain of circumstances is broken and incomplete, so the benefit of doubt must be given to the appellant. 36. Accordingly, the appeal is allowed. The judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 02.11.2018 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Khairagarh in Sessions Trial No. 06/2018 is hereby set-aside. The appellant is acquitted of the charge under Section 302 IPC. 37. The appellant is stated to be in jail. He is directed to be released forthwith unless wanted in any other case. However, keeping in view the provision of Section 437-A of the Cr.P.C., the accused- appellant is directed to furnish a personal bond for a sum of Rs. 25,000/- with two sureties in the like amount before the court concerned which shall be effective for a period of six months along with an undertaking that in the event of filing of Special Leave Petition against the instant judgment or for grant of leave, the aforesaid appellant, on receipt of notice thereof, shall appear before the Supreme Court. 17 38. Registry is directed to transmit the lower court record along with a copy of this judgment to the trial Court forthwith for necessary information and compliance. Sd/- Sd/- (Rajani Dubey) Judge (Amitendra Kishore Prasad) Judge Vishakha
Arguments
6. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the entire case is based on circumstantial evidence and no eyewitness account exists. He contends that the prosecution failed to establish the motive, last seen theory, or any direct link connecting the appellant with the crime. He submits that the alleged extrajudicial confession was made in the presence of police officials, which renders it inadmissible. It is argued that the trial Court erred in convicting the appellant on mere suspicion and conjecture. 7. Per contra, learned State Counsel supports the impugned judgment and contends that the prosecution has brought home the guilt of the appellant beyond reasonable doubt. 8. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and considered their rival submissions made herein-above and also went through the record with utmost circumspection. 9. The first question is as to whether the death of the deceased was homicidal in nature, which the learned trial Court has recorded the finding in affirmative on the basis of postmortem report (Ex.P/15) which is proved by Dr. Manish Baghel (PW-16), which is the finding of fact based on evidence available on record, it is neither perverse nor contrary to the record and we hereby affirm the said finding. 10. Now, the next question is, whether the appellant is author of the crime in question? 11. PW-1 Nandkumari Verma was informed from Ratnu Verma that 5 Anjani Verma was found dead in a field. She went to the spot with Anjani’s daughter and saw Anjani lying face down with marks of strangulation. Villagers took Anjani to the hospital where she was declared dead. The witness saw the police prepare body and site reports. She later found out that Ramlakhan Yadav strangled Anjani. In cross-examination, she admitted not witnessing the crime and that some information was hearsay, including rumors about Anjani’s relationship with the accused. 12. PW-2 Saraswati Verma is another witness who has also seen the deceased in the agricultural field after her death when she saw the dead body, she informed others. She submitted that after 5 days, she heard in the village that the appellant has strangulated the deceased. This witness is also the hearsay witness and not the eye witness. 13. PW-3 Raju Verma is the husband of the deceased Anjali. On the date of incident, when his wife was going to the filed, he handed over keys of borewell and mobile to her. Later on, he was informed about the death of his wife in the agricultural field. He alleges that his wife was living illicit relationship with the appellant and has suggested her not to continue this upon which, his wife had told her that all these allegations are vague. Subsequently, it came to his knowledge that Ramlakhan has been caught by the Police. He was having some doubt upon the appellant/accused, 6 however from this evidence of this witness, it is not apparent that he has stated anything material against the appellant/accused. 14. PW-4 Ku. Sajan @ Saraswati Verma, the daughter of the deceased is also a hearsay witness and has stated about involvement of the appellant in suspicion and on the basis of the doubt raised by the villagers. She has categorically stated that the appellant is their neighbors and they were not having talking terms. She has further stated that her family members have raised doubt about the involvement of the appellant. 15. PW-6 Panchuram Verma & PW-7 Khemlal Verma have been declared hostile and have not supported the case of prosecution. 16. PW-9 Pardesi Ram is the brother of the deceased who has stated that the extrajudicial confession was made by the accused appellant before him that he has murdered the deceased as she was demanding money from him regularly, as such he has strangulated her. This witness has also categorically stated that they are raising doubt against the accused appellant for murder of the deceased. From the evidence of this witness, it seems that some extrajudicial confession has been made before him, however it has been made in the presence of Police. 17. PW-10, Anuj Verma is the witness of memorandum and seizure of bicycle. The memorandum is Ex.P/9 wheres as the seizure of bicycle is Ex.P/11. He has stated that the police personnel have 7 informed him that the accused appellant has confessed his guilt on 27.12.2017 itself and the police personnel have recorded his confession. Though a lengthy cross-examination has been made, however the material thing is that the accused-appellant has confessed about the crime in presence of this witness before the Police. 18. PW-11 Bhushan Singh is the witness of memorandum and seizure Exs.P/9, P/10 and P/11. Memorandum has been recorded before this witness and on his memorandum, a bicycle was seized. 19. PW-13 Mukesh Kumar Sahu has been examined however this witness was declared hostile and has not supported the case of prosecution. 20. PW-15 Ramsukh is the Kotwar of the village who also claims that the accused-appellant has made extrajudicial confession before him. 21. PW-16 is the Doctor, who has conducted the postmortem of the deceased, has categorically stated in his report Ex.P/15 that the deceased has died due to strangulation and the death was within 24 hours and was homicidal in nature. 22. PW-7 Khemlal Verma, who is the I.O., has conducted the investigation and has stated that he has recorded the statement of the witnesses as given by them and he has not exaggerated or 8 suppressed any material as stated by the witnesses. He has supported the investigation made by him. 23. The entire case of the prosecution hinges on circumstantial evidence. In the matter of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, reported in (1984) 4 SCC 116, the Hon'ble Supreme Court laid down the five golden principles (panchsheel) for reliance on circumstantial evidence and the same read as under:- “152. Before discussing the cases relied upon by the High Court we would like to cite a few decisions on the nature, character and essential proof required in a criminal case fundamental and basic decision of this Court is circumstantial which rests on evidence alone. Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh ((1952) 2 The SCC 71: AIR 1952 SC 343: 1952 SCR 1091: 1953 most Cri LJ 1291. This case has been uniformly followed and applied by this Court in a large number of later decisions up-to-date, for instance, the cases of Tufail (Alias) Simmi v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1969) observations were made : SCC para 19, p.807 : SCC (Cri.) p.1047) 153. …. (1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established.