Penal Code, 1860: ss.302 and 201 – Murder – Circumstantial evidence – Conviction of appellant-accused by trial court affirmed by High Court – Concurrent findings of the courts below – On appeal, held: The chain of events which led to death of the deceased was established without any break implicating the appellant with the chain of events – Appellant could not prove any material contradiction or inconsistency in evidence – No reason to interfere with the concurrent finding of the courts below. Appeal: Concurrent findings of the lower courts – Held: Where the findings of conviction are concurrent in nature and based on appreciation of evidence, such findings are usually binding on Supreme Court – However, if the appellant is able to show any perversity, arbitrariness, absurdity or illegality in any such concurrent findings then, in such circumstances, the findings though concurrent are not binding on Supreme Court.
Evidence: Minor contradictions – Effect on prosecution case – Held: 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.
Dismissing the appeal, the Court
HELD : The High Court took note of the circumstances that led to the death of the deceased and how the appellant was connected with the crime in question. The circumstances noticed are first, the deceased was last seen in the company of the appellant (A-1); Second, the appellant and the deceased, both went together to a liquor shop to purchase bottle of whisky; Third, recovery of the body from the heap of hay of PW-18 with bleeding injuries; Fourth, the appellant’s fingerprints found on the Whisky bottle (McDowell) and glass and on other seized articles at the scene of occurrence by the Handwriting & Fingerprint Expert; Fifth, the recovery of all the seized articles was made at the instance of the appellant; Sixth, the appellant was having some grudge against the deceased because the appellant had requested the deceased to sort out some issues between him and PW-6 but the deceased failed to do so for some reasons; Seventh, the appellant failed to explain any of these circumstances and kept mum when asked to explain. The prosecution with the aid of 33 witnesses proved the 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 seven circumstances, their evidence was rightly relied on for sustaining the conviction. That apart, 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. The appellant could not prove any material contradiction or inconsistency in evidence. [Paras 10-13] [63-F-H; 64-A-B]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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