[S.302 IPC] Foremost aspect to be proved by prosecution for conviction is factum of homicidal death: Top Court

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The Supreme Court on Friday remarked that in order to convict an accused under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, the first and foremost aspect to be proved by prosecution is the factum of homicidal death.

A bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Bela M Trivedi observed,

"If the evidence of prosecution falls short of proof of homicidal death of the deceased, and if the possibility of suicidal death could not be ruled out, in the opinion of this court, the appellant-accused could not have been convicted merely on the basis of the theory of “Last seen together”."

The observations were made by the top court while allowing an appeal filed by accused Chandrapal and acquitting him from the charges levelled against him.

Facts:

A love affair was going on between Kumari Brindabai, the daughter of Bhagirathi Kumhar who belonged to the caste Kumhar, and Kanhaiya Siddar, who belonged to the caste Siddar (Gaur). Bhagirathi and his brother Chandrapal did not approve of this. On December 2, 1994, both Kumari Brinda and Kanhaiya went missing.

On December 11, 1994, at about 09:00 am, Lodhu (PW-2) went to Kajubadi (Cashew Nursery) and saw the dead bodies of the deceased Kumari Brinda and Kanhaiya hanging on a cashew tree.

The bodies were in a decomposed state and were not identifiable, however, the informant-appellant Chandrapal identified the dead bodies.

A postmortem report conducted by Dr. R.K. Singh (PW-13), opined that the ligature mark over the neck was antemortem in nature, and the cause of death appeared to be Asphyxia due to hanging.

As per the case of the prosecution, accused Chandrapal called Kanhaiya and took him to his house when he was sitting at the premises of village Panchayat, where some TV programme was going on, then he shut him down in the room and all the accused i.e., Bhagirathi, Chandrapal, Mangal Singh and Videshi, in furtherance of their common intention, pressed his neck and committed his murder. Thereafter, the accused Mangal Singh and Videshi committed the murder of Kumari Brinda.

Court Proceedings:

Sessions Court framed charges against the four accused for offence under Section 302 read with section 34 of IPC. Each of the accused was also separately charged for the offence under Section 201 read with Section 34 of IPC, as also for the offence under Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities), Act, 1989.

First Additional Sessions Judge, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), acquitted all the accused from charges levelled under Section 3(2)(v) of the SC-ST Act, however, found them guilty of the offences under Sections 302 and 201 read with Section 34 of IPC.

All four accused approached the High Court, which confirmed the conviction of Chandrapal for the offence under Sections 302 and 201 read with Section 34, and set aside the conviction and sentence imposed on Bhagirathi Kumhar, Mangal Singh and Videshi for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 of IPC, however, it confirmed their conviction under Section 201 read with Section 34 of IPC, and sentenced all of them to the period already undergone by them.

Accordingly, Chandrapal approached the top court in appeal.

Court's Analysis:

Court said that the evidence of Dr. R.K. Singh, who had carried out the post-mortem of the deceased Brinda and Kanhaiya, would be most relevant.

Dr. Singh had specifically stated that neither any fracture was found on the dead bodies of the deceased, nor any blood clots were found, nor any injuries were found, and therefore the cause of death was hanging which normally was found in the case of suicide.

Also, in the cross-examination, Dr. Singh had categorically admitted that he did not find any symptom of homicidal death, nor he had opined in his report that the deaths were homicidal.

Both the High Court and Sessions Court had not relied on the postmortem report. In this regard, the top court said that, 

"...when the case of the prosecution rested on circumstantial evidence, it was imperative for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the deaths of the deceased were homicidal deaths and not suicidal,..... and when Dr. R.K. Singh who had carried out their post-mortems had also opined that the nature of their deaths was Suicidal."

The extra judicial confession made by the co-accused Videshi was also not relied on by the top court while noting that an extra judicial confession is a weak kind of evidence and unless it inspires confidence or is fully corroborated by some other evidence of clinching nature, ordinarily conviction for the offence of murder should not be made only on the evidence of extra judicial confession.

Furthermore, the 'last seen together' theory of the prosecution was disregarded since the time gap between the two incidents i.e., the day when Dhansingh, a witness, saw Chandrapal calling Kanhaiya (deceased) at his house and the day Kanhaiya’s dead body was quite big, which made it difficult to connect Chandrapal with the alleged crime, more particularly when there was no other clinching and cogent evidence produced by the prosecution.

Case Title: CHANDRAPAL vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH