Ramesh Kumar vs State Of Rajasthan

The instant appeal under Section 374(2) Cr.P.C. has been preferred by the appellant Ramesh Kumar against the judgment dated 15/05/2015, passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bali in Sessions Case No.15/2013, whereby the accused-appellant stands convicted under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment with a fine of Rs.5,000/- and in default to payment of fine, further to undergo six months simple imprisonment.

Facts in brief are : PW.5 Rakmo Devi, mother of the deceased Ratan Devi, submitted a complaint on 31/10/2012 before the Police Station, Falana stating therein that her daughter was married with accused Ramesh Kumar two years back but relationship between the husband and wife was not cordial and, therefore, the deceased was staying in her parental house. Two months prior to the date of incident, the accused took away the deceased with him and they started staying in a rented accommodation of Jassaram Meghwal in Ashok Nagar, Falana. On 31/10/2012 at around 10-11 a.m., a scuffle took place between the husband and wife, in which her daughter was killed by the accused Ramesh Kumar. A day earlier Ratan Devi informed her on telephone that she was suffering from fever and, therefore, she wanted to come to the parental home. Death of the deceased was caused due to a heated altercation between the husband and wife on a very trivial issue.

On the aforesaid complaint, a formal FIR No.148/2012 was registered against the accused for the offence under Section 302 IPC at the Police Station Falana, District Pali.

After completion of investigation, police filed a charge-sheet against the accused-appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC.

Learned Trial Court framed, read over and explained the charge for the offence under Section 302 to the accused appellant who denied the charge and sought trial.

During the trial, the prosecution examined as many as 17 witnesses and 35 documents were exhibited.

The accused-appellant was examined under Section 313 Cr.P.C. and he was confronted with the evidence adduced against him during the course of trial to which he denied and stated that he did not commit any offence. He was innocent and had been falsely implicated in the present case.

Learned trial Court, after hearing the arguments from both the sides, taking into consideration and appreciating the documentary evidence and the statements of witnesses, convicted and sentenced the accused-appellant as above vide judgment dated 15/05/2015. Hence this appeal.

We have heard learned counsel for the appellant and the learned Public Prosecutor.

Learned counsel Mr. Pradeep Shah submits that nothing has emerged on record which proves commission of the said offence by the accused beyond all reasonable doubt. He has further tried to portray a story that the deceased was not of virtuous character and it cannot be ruled out that the husband i.e. the accused has seen his wife i.e. deceased Ratan Devi in a compromising situation, and, therefore, having been agitated by the said fact he might have lost his temper and inflicted fatal blows on her acting under grave provocation. He further submits that during the course of scuffle and the heated altercation, the appellant also suffered injuries (Injury Report Ex.P.21), which raises a doubt of presence of a third person in the room. He further submits that the injuries suffered by the appellant show that there was a free fight between the inhabitants of the room in which the deceased was found dead and just to save the real culprit, the present appellant is being falsely implicated by the relatives of the deceased on the ground that the relationship between the accused and his wife deceased Ratan Devi was strained.

He further argues that no prosecution witness has deposed before the trial Court that the fatal injuries were caused to the deceased by the present appellant and rather the residents of the nearby houses have not supported the prosecution story and thus they have been declared "hostile". He further submits that the chain of events is not so complete which could conclusively establish that the offence alleged in the present case was committed by the present appellant and none-else. The statements of Ramesh Kumar(PW-9), Mahendra Kumar(PW-10) and Rakmo Devi (PW-5) being brothers and mother respectively of the deceased are not worth credence and reliable being interested witnesses. Therefore, he has tried to submit before this Court that learned trial Court fell into error while convicting the present appellant for the offence under Section 302 IPC. In view of the above submissions, the counsel prays that the judgment passed by trial Court deserves to be quashed and set aside and the accused is entitled to an acquittal by extending him the benefit of doubt.

Per Contra, learned Public Prosecutor submits that the relationship between the husband and wife i.e. accused and the deceased was not very cordial and the deceased was often assaulted at the hands of the accused and the very fact that after marriage, for most of the time, the deceased used to stay in her parental house and was taken by the accused to Falana only three months prior to the incident shows that the relationship between them was strained. He further submits that there is no reason for disbelieving the prosecution witnesses, namely, Rakmo Devi (PW-5), Ramesh Kumar (PW-9) & Mahendra Kumar (PW-10) being the close family members of the deceased as it has come on record that the accused was assaulting the deceased Ratan Devi and naturally they being the close relatives, deceased informed them about the maltreatment at the hands of accused. He further submits that the recovery of the bloodstained weapon of offence from the rented premises of the accused, the statements of Dr. Sanjay Bedi and the postmortem report (Ex.P.18) clearly corroborate the statements of prosecution witnesses who have deposed in their statements that only husband and wife were staying in the rented accommodation and were often fighting with each other and their relationship was not cordial.

He further submits that as per Section 106 of the Evidence Act, it is the presumption that if a fact is in the personal/special knowledge of a person then, he is supposed to divulge the same. But in the present case, no explanation worth the name is forthcoming from the accused even in the statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C. Therefore, it will be presumed that the appellant has nothing to say or has no explanation to offer. He, therefore, submits that the judgment of learned trial court convicting the appellant under Section 302 IPC is not required to be interfered with.

We have considered the submissions made at bar and have scrutinized the record of the trial Court.

We note that in the statements of prosecution witnesses, namely, Teejo Bai (PW-1) and Jaisa Ram(PW-2), it has come on record that the appellant and the deceased were staying in a rented accommodation. As per the statement of Rakmo Devi(PW-5), Ramesh Kumar (PW-9) & Mahendra Kumar (PW-10) it has come on record that the relationship between the accused-husband and deceased-wife was not very cordial and often they indulged in fighting with each other. The injuries found on the body of accused soon after the incident lends corroboration to the fact that he was present at the place of incident. Therefore, he is the best person to offer an explanation for the cause of the death of the deceased. The recovery of the bloodstained Kunt from the scene of occurrence shows that the same was used for the purpose of causing fatal blows to the deceased. The FSL Report (Ex.P35) establishes presence of blood of human origin on the Kunt and the articles sent for serological examination (including the clothes of the appellant). Thus the prosecution had been able to complete the chain of events proving beyond reasonable doubt that it was appellant alone who is involved in the commission of offence alleged and none else.

The theory of anybody else present in the room is noted to be rejected as the injuries sustained by the accused show and suggest that the same are self inflicted. As per the statement of Dr. Sanjay Bedi (PW-15) who examined the injuries of the appellant, the same were multiple, parallel, unidirectional and in close proximity which shows that the same are self inflicted as except head, there were no injuries on the body of accused Ramesh. Presumably, the accused after inflicting fatal blows to his wife must have tried to make a plot by self inflicted injuries to give the incident a shape of having scuffle with some other person present there and perhaps had tried to frame a story that while he had seen his wife in a compromising position with some other person, he got agitated and there was a free fight in which he sustained the injuries as mentioned in Ex.P-21 and his wife received fatal injuries which resulted into her death. The injuries sustained by the appellant apart from being manifestly self inflicted are simple in nature. We are not impressed by the argument of the appellant's counsel and are of the firm view that it was only the appellant who has caused the fatal injuries to the deceased as mentioned in the statement of Dr. Sanjay Bedi (PW- 15) who conducted the autopsy of the deceased Ratan Devi. The cause of death of the deceased opined in the postmortem report (Ex.P.18) is intra-cranial hemorrhage and subsequent hemorrhage shock, leading to derangement of vital functions due to the injuries inflicted to Smt. Ratan Devi. The absence of any explanation by the accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C further enhances the firm belief that the appellant has no explanation to offer in the matter and further the absence of any explanation for the injuries suffered by him leads to the only conclusion that it was the appellant alone who was present in the room and nobody else, who has assaulted the deceased by a sharp edged weapon causing her death.

Their Lordships of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in 2016 (12) SCC 665, in the case of "Harijan Bhala Teja vs. State of Gujarat", have held that when the appellant alone was staying with his wife at time of her death, it was for him to show as to in what manner she died, when prosecution successfully proved her homicidal death inside the four walls of the matrimonial house. Their Lordships have held as under: -

"19. Section 106 of the Evidence Act, 1872 provides that when any fact is especially within the knowledge of any person, the burden of proving that fact is upon him. Since it is proved on the record that it was only the appellant who was staying with his wife at the time of her death, it is for him to show as to in what manner she died, particularly, when the prosecution has successfully proved that she died homicidal death."

The appellant and his wife were staying in the rented accommodation and there was no body else in the room at the time of the incident. Therefore, lack of explanation by the accused leads to the only logical interference and conclusion that it was the appellant only who is involved in the offence alleged in the present case.

Our view further gets fortified in the wake of the statements of the prosecution witnesses PW-5 Rakmo Devi, PW-9 Ramesh Kumar & PW-10 Mahendra Kumar who have stated that after consuming liquor, the appellant was assaulting his wife every now and then and was not happy with her. Merely because these three witnesses are closely related to the deceased, their testimony cannot be outrightly discarded.

We get support from the observations made by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in para Nos.24 to 28 in the case of Yogesh Singh vs. Mahabeer Singh reported in AIR 2016 SC 5160, which read as under:-

"24. On the issue of appreciation of evidence of interested witnesses, Dalip Singh Vs. State of Punjab, AIR 1953 SC 364 = 1954 SCR 145, is one of the earliest cases on the point. In that case, it was held as follows:

"A witness is normally to be considered independent unless he or she springs from sources which are likely to be tainted and that usually means unless the witness has cause, such as enmity against the accused, to wish to implicate him falsely. Ordinarily, a close relative would be the last to screen the real culprit and falsely implicate an innocent person. It is true, when feelings run high and there is personal cause for enmity, that there is a tendency to drag in an innocent person against whom a witness has a grudge along with the guilty, but foundation must be laid for such a criticism and the mere fact of relationship far from being a foundation is often a sure guarantee of truth."

Similarly, in Piara Singh and Ors. Vs. State of Punjab, AIR 1977 SC 2274 = (1977) 4 SCC 452, this Court held:

"It is well settled that the evidence of interested or inimical witnesses is to be scrutinised with care but cannot be rejected merely on the ground of being a partisan evidence. If on a perusal of the evidence the Court is satisfied that the evidence is creditworthy there is no bar in the Court relying on the said evidence."

In Hari Obula Reddy and Ors. Vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh, (1981) 3 SCC 675, a three-judge Bench of this Court observed:

".. it is well settled that interested evidence is not necessarily unreliable evidence. Even partisanship by itself is not a valid ground for discrediting or rejecting sworn testimony. Nor can it be laid down as an invariable rule that interested evidence can never form the basis of conviction unless corroborated to a material extent in material particulars by independent evidence. All that is necessary is that the evidence of interested witnesses should be subjected to careful scrutiny and accepted with caution. If on such scrutiny, the interested testimony is found to be intrinsically reliable or inherently probable, it may, by itself, be sufficient, in the circumstances of the particular case, to base a conviction thereon."

Again, in Ramashish Rai Vs. Jagdish Singh, (2005) 10 SCC 498, the following observations were made by this Court:

"The requirement of law is that the testimony of inimical witnesses has to be considered with caution. If otherwise the witnesses are true and reliable their testimony cannot be thrown out on the threshold by branding them as inimical witnesses. By now, it is well-settled principle of law that enmity is a double-edged sword. It can be a ground for false implication. It also can be a ground for assault. Therefore, a duty is cast upon the court to examine the testimony of inimical witnesses with due caution and diligence."

A survey of the judicial pronouncements of this Court on this point leads to the inescapable conclusion that the evidence of a closely related witnesses is required to be carefully scrutinised and appreciated before any conclusion is made to rest upon it, regarding the convict/accused in a given case. Thus, the evidence cannot be disbelieved merely on the ground that the witnesses are related to each other or to the deceased. In case the evidence has a ring of truth to it, is cogent, credible and trustworthy, it can, and certainly should, be relied upon. (See Anil Rai Vs. State of Bihar, (2001) 7 SCC 318; State of U.P. Vs. Jagdeo Singh, (2003) 1 SCC 456; Bhagalool Lodh & Anr. Vs. State of U.P., (2011) 13 SCC 206; Dahari & Ors. Vs. State of U. P., (2012) 10 SCC 256; Raju @ Balachandran & Ors. Vs. State of Tamil Nadu, (2012) 12 SCC 701; Gangabhavani Vs. Rayapati Venkat Reddy & Ors., (2013) 15 SCC 298; Jodhan Vs. State of M.P., (2015) 11 SCC 52)".

Therefore, solely on this ground that they are interested witnesses, their testimony cannot be discarded.

In view of the detailed discussion as above, we are not inclined to interfere in the judgment of conviction dated 15.05.2015. Resultantly, the appeal fails and the same is hereby dismissed.