Punia Devi .… v. State of Bihar now Jharkhand
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI Criminal Appeal (D.B.) No. 235 of 1997 --------- Punia Devi .….Appellant Versus State of Bihar now Jharkhand .....Respondent --------- CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE RONGON MUKHOPADHYAY HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE DEEPAK ROSHAN --------- For the Appellants For the Respondent : Mr. Bhola Nath Ojha, Spl.P.P : Mr. Amit Kumar Verma, Amicus Curiae --------- C.A.V. ON:-20.06.2024 PRONOUNCED ON:- 04/07/2024 Per Deepak Roshan, J. This appeal is directed against the judgement of conviction and order of sentence dated 30.07.1997 & 31.07.1997 respectively, passed by the 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Gumla in S.T. case no.108/1996; whereby appellant has been convicted under Section 302 and 201 I.P.C. and sentenced for life imprisonment under Section 302 I.P.C., however, no separate sentence was passed under Section 201 I.P.C. 2. The prosecution case is that the informant, Lohair Singh, the brother of the deceased-Balmait Devi, lodged an F.I.R. on 12.11.1995 in Palkot Police Station stating therein that on 09.11.1995, at night he received an information from Maheshwar Singh alias Hote Singh of village Bartoli that his sister, Balmait Devi died by falling in the well. On this information, the informant alongwith Maheshwar Singh went to the P.O. village on 10.11.1995 and in his presence the dead body of the deceased was taken out of the well with the assistance of the co-villagers. It is further alleged that a stone piece had been tied with a rope around the waist of the dead body. The dead body was swollen. The dead body was taken to the burning ghat and was consigned to the flames. No information was given to the police and it was told by the people that it should not be communicated to anyone else. No ceremony of “Mukhagni” was performed at the time of burning the dead body. The husband of the deceased was working at Ranchi as a coolie in the shop of a business man. On the following day i.e. on 11.11.95, the informant and Maheshwar Singh came back and told the family members about the occurrence. The informant could come to know at the place of occurrence itself that her father-in-law and mother-in-law (both accused in this case) used to abuse her because she was not giving birth to a child. It has further been alleged that a year prior to the occurrence, she was blessed with a child who subsequently died. Her husband loved her but he was living at Ranchi in connection with his job. When the informant told his villagers all about the occurrence, then it was decided to inform the police. Accordingly, informant along with Manju Singh, Madho Singh and 3-4 villagers came to the place of occurrence and lodged the F. I. R. On the basis of the F.I.R., a case U/s 302,201/34 I.P.C. was instituted against the accused Lullu Singh (since dead) and his wife Punia Devi who is the appellant herein. The investigation of the case was taken up and finally the I.O. found the case true against the accused and accordingly submitted charge-sheet against them u/s 302, 201/34 I. P.C. On the basis of the charge-sheet, the learned C. J. M. Gumla took cognizance of the offence against the accused persons on 20.01.1996 and finally the case was committed to the court of Sessions on 25.04.1996. Both the accused persons pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. The accused Lullu
Facts
Singh died during trial and the learned trial court convicted the appellant herein for the offence under section 302/201 I.P.C. 3.
Legal Reasoning
“153. A close analysis of this decision would show that the following conditions must be fulfilled before a case against an accused can be said to be fully established: (1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established. 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 the in Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade v. State of Maharashtra where observations were made: “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.” 9. After going through the aforesaid judgement and the evidences available on record; we see that in the instant case the prosecution has miserably failed to bring evidence on record so as to form a complete chain of circumstances pointing towards the guilt of the accused. The circumstance from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn has not been established 6 in this case. 10. Having regard to the aforesaid discussions; the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 30.07.1997 & 31.07.1997 respectively, passed by learned 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Gumla in S.T Case No. 108/1996 wherein appellant was convicted under Section 302 and Section 201 I.P.C., is hereby, set aside. 11. Since the appellant is on bail, she is discharged from the liability of her bail bonds. 12. Let a copy of this order and the lower court records be sent to the court concerned forthwith. (Rongon Mukhopadhyay, J.) (Deepak Roshan, J.) Jharkhand High Court at Ranchi Dated:-04/07/2024 Vikas/ AFR 7
Arguments
Learned Counsel for the appellant submits that there is no eye witness to the occurrence and the entire case lies on 2 circumstantial evidence. P. Ws. 1, 2, 3 and 4 have stated that they came to learn about the occurrence from Lohary Singh, the brother of the deceased. P.W.5 has not stated anything. There is no direct evidence against the appellant but merely on presumption without any connected link the appellant has been convicted by the learned trial court. He further submits that the alleged stone and rope used has not been seized by the police and it is great lacuna on the part of the prosecution. As a matter of fact, the deceased went to fetch water from the well and fell down into it and died. He further submits so far as allegation of using abusive language by in-laws of the deceased, the I.O has categorical deposed that upon investigation no villagers or any witnesses have said anything to that effect. He lastly submits that circumstantial evidence is a very weak type of evidence. Circumstantial evidence, however, strong cannot prove the guilt of the appellant as such he prays for acquittal. 4. Learned A.P.P. defended the findings of the learned trial court and submits that there is no error in the impugned judgment and the learned trial court has rightly convicted the appellant for the offence under Section 302 and 201 of I.P.C 5. Having heard learned counsel for the rival parties and after going through L.C.R. it appears that in order to prove prosecution case; prosecution has examined 8 witnesses i.e. P.W.1-Manju Singh, P.W.2-Madho Singh, P.W.3-Toro Singh, P.W.4-Rajendra Gope, P.W.5-Soma Munda, P.W.6-Maheshwar Singh, P.W.7-Lohair Singh (informant) and P.W.8-Shashi Kant Lal, who is the Investigating Officer of the case. There is no eye witness to the occurrence and the entire case lies on circumstantial evidence. P.Ws. 1, 2, 3, and 4 have stated that 3 they came to learn about the occurrence from Lohary Singh, the brother of the deceased. P.W.5 has not stated anything. P.W.6-Maheshwar Singh is the person who was given information by the father-in-law of the deceased about the occurrence. He has stated that the accused Lullu Singh went to his village and told him that his daughter-in-law (deceased) died by falling in the well. After receiving the information, he went to the village of the informant and told him about the occurrence. He has further stated that he along with the informant came to the place of occurrence and saw the dead body in the well. However, he has denied to have seen anything else. He has further stated that he along with others went to the burning ground where the dead body was consigned to flames. He has deposed in cross examination that when he reached there, villagers were getting out the dead body from well and there was no rope and stone tied to her. P.W.7 is the informant himself. He has deposed that the information of death of his sister was given by Maheshwar Singh. He came to the place of occurrence and saw the dead body in the well. In his presence dead body was taken out of the well by the 10-15 villagers and he saw that 15-20 K.G stone was tied with the body of the deceased. He has further stated that the dead body was burnt at the instance of her father-in- law. He has also stated that the ceremony of "Mukhagni" was not resorted to. 6. It transpires from the deposition of P.W.6 and 7 that the villagers have taken out the dead body from the well in presence of informant. P.W.6 Maheshwar Singh who is also an eye witness and who informed the incident to the informant has deposed that he along with the informant came to the place of occurrence and saw the dead body in the well; however, he has denied to have seen anything else. 4 P.W.6 has categorically stated in his cross examination that when he reached at the place of occurrence; villagers were taking out the dead body from well and there was no rope and/or stone was tied with her. P.W.8 who is the investigating officer of the case has also deposed at para 11 that he did not found rope and stone at the place of occurrence. Thus, from the categorical deposition of P.w.6 and P.W.8 it is clear that allegation of 15-20 K.G stone tied with rope on the body of the deceased is false and fabricated. At this stage, it is further pertinent to mention here that when the informant reached the place of occurrence on the day itself and saw the above alleged allegation; why he participated in cremation and not informed the Police immediately. The deposition of the Informant that out of fear he did not went to police station is not acceptable, inasmuch as, he was not alone there. 7. So far as allegation of the informant regarding using abusive language by the appellant and her deceased husband is concerned; it appears from the deposition of P.W.8, who is the investigating officer of the case and has categorical deposed at para 10 that upon investigation no villagers or any witnesses have said anything to that effect. From the prosecution case itself, it appears that father-in- law namely Lullu Singh has given the information to P.W.-6 who was the relative of the informant regarding death of deceased to inform to their family. After receiving the information he went to the village of the informant and told him about the occurrence and he along with informant went to the village of deceased and saw the dead body in the well. If it would have been a case of murder then no one would have informed to the deceased family nor in the presence of 5 informant and his relative, take out the dead body of the deceased from the well and even in cremation ceremony informant as well as P.W.-6 Maheshwar Singh along with 10-15 villagers were present there. Interestingly, no villager has supported the prosecution case. 8. At this stage it is necessary refer the judgement passed by the Hon’ble the Apex Court passed in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra reported in(1984) 4 SCC 116, wherein at para 153 and 154, the law regarding circumstantial evidence has been laid down as under:-