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Judgment
Sunil Kumar Sinha, J.—Appellant-Sudhar Singh stands convicted u/s 302, IPC and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life by the Sessions Judge, Bilaspur in Sessions Trial No. 415/91 on 24th of October, 1992.
The facts, briefly stated, are as under:
Deceased-Nirmala Baiwas the wife of the appellant. On 23-8-91, as usual, she had gone to the village pump with a metal hawla (water pot for bringing water) at a distance about 50 yards from her house. While she was returning after filling the hawla, the appellant suddenly appeared with a tangia and assaulted her from back side. He gave repeated tangia blows to the deceased resulting into her death. Aghaniya Bai (P.W. 1) whose house was very nearer to the hand-pump, was attracted by the sound of fall of hawla. She immediately came out of her house and saw the appellant running away with blood-stained tangia in his hands. She started raising alarm that the appellant is running after assaulting his wife. Brijkunwar (P.W. 2) was also in front of her house. She had also seen the appellant running away with tangia in his hands. Brijkunwar informed the mother of the appellant, Jugaribai, about the incident. Santram (P.W. 3) lodged Dehatinalishi. The post-mortem examination was conducted by Dr. Subhash Ghosalkar (P.W. 5), who found deep incised wound 4 inch x 2 inch x 2 inch on the back of the neck in between 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. Vertebrae and spinal cord were cut and artery and vein in the vicinity were also found cut. Another incised wound of 2 1/2 inch x 1 inch x 1 inch was found on the right side of the face below maxillary prominence. Injuries were ante-mortem. The Doctor opined that the death was on account of above injuries and it was homicidal in nature.
During the course of investigation, the appellant was taken into custody and his memorandum statement (Exh. P-2) was recorded on 27-8-91 and blood stained tangia was seized at the instance of the appellant. The cloths of the appellant were also seized. The seized articles were sent for chemical examination to Forensic Science Laboratory and a report (Exh. P-16) was obtained which confirmed the presence of blood on the cloths of the appellant as also on the tangia seized at the instance of the appellant.
The case of the prosecution was based on the testimonies of two witnesses namely Aghaniya Bai (P.W. 1) and Brijkunwar (P.W. 2) who saw the appellant running away from the place of occurrence having blood stained tangia in his hands and the seizure of blood stained tangia at the instance of the appellant.
Mr. R.K. Jain, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, has not disputed the homicidal death of the deceased. He argued that there were no eye-witnesses to the incident; the above two witnesses had only seen the appellant running away from the place of occurrence; and the seizure of tangia was after 4 days of the incident, therefore, the conviction on the above evidence cannot be sustained.
On the other hand, Mr. Akhil Mishra, learned Dy. Govt. Advocate appearing on behalf of the State, opposed these arguments and supported the judgment passed by the Sessions Court.
We have heard the learned Counsel for the parties at length and have also perused the records of the sessions case.
Admittedly, there were no eye-witnesses to the incident and the case of the prosecution was based on circumstantial evidence. In such cases the circumstances from which the conclusion of the guilt is to drawn should be fully established and all the circumstances so established should be of conclusive nature and consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and the chain of circumstances must be complete so as not to leave any reasonable ground for the belief consistent with the innocence of the accused. It is on these principles, the evidence led by the prosecution has to be examined in each case and then only the conviction can be based on circumstantial evidence.
In the present case, it was a morning time of about 6-7.00 a.m. According to the prosecution, the deceased had gone to fetch water from the public hand-pump. Aghaniya Bai (P.W. 1) deposed that as soon as she saw that Nirmala Bai was lying in gali in injured condition, she also saw that the appellant was running away from that place having a tangia in his hands. She deposed that she saw the appellant from a distance of about 20 steps. Almost similar is the evidence of Brijkunwar (P.W. 2) who also deposed that she saw the appellant running from the place of occurrence having a tangia and she also saw the deceased lying in gali. We find that a formal cross-examination is thereof these two witnesses, and nothing could be brought on record, on which, either their testimonies may be discarded or it may be held that they are trying to falsely implicate the appellant in the above manner.
Why the appellant would run away from the place where his wife was lying in injured condition. If the appellant would not have been the assailant, after such incident, he must have tried to save life of his wife and should have raised alarm etc. after such an incident at public place. We note that these two witnesses are quite independent and their houses are situated near the hand-pump. There is no whisper that they were keeping ill will against the appellant, therefore, there was no reason with them to falsely implicate the appellant in the above manner. Had there been a case of false implication by these witnesses, they could have deposed more than what they have deposed and could have posed them as the eye-witnesses. In the facts and circumstances of the case, the above conduct of the appellant leads to the conclusion that he was the culprit of crime and was seen running away from the place of occurrence with a tangia in his hands immediately after the occurrence. Apart from the above, we also find that the memorandum and seizure of tangia at the instance of the appellant was established by the prosecution by evidence of Santram (P. W. 3). The blood stains in FSL report were found on the tangia seized at the instance of the appellant. Even the blood stains were also found on the cloths seized from the possession of the appellant and the appellant could not explain all this.
Though the act of absconding is normally considered as weak link in the chain of circumstances for establishing the guilt of an accused, but in the present case, the matter is not that of simple absconding. The evidence of above two witnesses would show that falling of the deceased on account of injuries and running away of the appellant with an axe in his hands were events of the same time which were simultaneously noticed by the above two witnesses. If the appellant was innocent, he should not have run away in the above manner when the cries were made by Aghaniya Bai (P.W. 1) from a distance of 20 steps, which must have been noticed by the appellant also. This shows mens rea and guilty mind of the appellant, therefore, the above circumstance along with other circumstances of memorandum and seizure of blood stained cloths and tangia at the instance of the appellant were sufficient to hold him guilt of the offence of murder of his wife.
For the foregoing reasons, we do not find any infirmity in the judgment and finding recorded by the Sessions Court.
The appeal is liable to be dismissed and is hereby dismissed. It is stated that the appellant is on bail. He is directed to surrender immediately to serve the remaining sentence in accordance with law.