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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
D.P.Mohapatra : K.T.Thomas
State Of U.P.
Versus
Shyam Sunder
Case No. : 472 of 1991
Date of Decision : 2/24/99
CRIMINAL APPEAL - SECTION 302 IPC - FACTUAL ANALYSIS - INTERPRETATION OF EVIDENCE - RELIABILITY OF WITNESSES - SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE - DELAY IN LODGING FIR - MOTIVE - COURT'S DISCRETION IN APPRECIATING EVIDENCE - RESTORATION OF CONVICTION AND SENTENCE.
Fact of the Case:
Yogwati was brutally murdered in her home by her brother-in-law Shyam Sunder. The Sessions Court convicted Shyam Sunder under Section 302 IPC, but the High Court acquitted him. The State appealed to the Supreme Court.
Finding of the Court:
The Supreme Court found that the High Court's reasoning for acquittal was unconvincing and unsustainable. The evidence of the prosecution witnesses was reliable and consistent, while the defense witness's testimony was unreliable and self-serving. The delay in lodging the FIR was not significant enough to discredit the prosecution case. The Supreme Court restored the conviction and sentence passed by the trial court.
Issues: 1. Whether the evidence on record was sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt? 2. Whether the High Court erred in discarding the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and relying on the testimony of the defense witness? 3. Whether the delay in lodging the FIR vitiated the prosecution case?
Ratio Decidendi: 1. The Supreme Court held that the evidence on record was sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The testimony of the prosecution witnesses was consistent and corroborated by the medical evidence. The defense witness's testimony was unreliable and self-serving. 2. The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred in discarding the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and relying on the testimony of the defense witness. The prosecution witnesses were credible and their testimony was consistent with the medical evidence. The defense witness was the father of the accused and had a motive to lie. 3. The Supreme Court held that the delay in lodging the FIR did not vitiate the prosecution case. The delay was explained by the fact that the victim's husband was in shock and had to regain his composure before going to the police station.
Final Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the impugned judgment, and restored the conviction and sentence passed by the trial court.
K.T.THOMAS, J.
(1) YOGWATI, a housewife was butchered in her nuptial home by cutting her neck, chest and spinal cord. Her death followed instantaneously. Her brother-in-law Shyam Sunder was prosecuted for the murder. The Sessions Judge who tried him found him guilty of the offence under Section 302 IPC and convicted him thereunder and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. When he appealed to the High Court of Allahabad a Division Bench thereof allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence passed on him. Against the said order of acquittal the State of Uttar Pradesh has preferred this appeal by special leave.
(2) THE prosecution story, in brief, can be narrated: Yogwati and her husband Ram Sanehi were living together in their house at Ranikher Village, Mohanlalganj (Lucknow District). Respondent Shyam Sunder and PW 1 Ram Sanehi had some disputes over division of family properties. It aggravated to hostility between them. When some household articles were partitioned, the brothers quarrelled with each other in which deceased Yogwati, naturally, took the side of her husband. This infuriated Shyam Sunder. On 26-1-1981 while Yogwati was taking her food at about 9.00 a.m. Shyam Sunder inflicted blows on her with an axe. At that time her husband Ram Sanehi was chatting with a neighbour Shatrughan (PW 3) just outside the gate of the compound. He overheard the sound of the commotion and the cry of Yogwati and then he along with Shatrughan rushed to the house and witnessed the remaining part of the occurrence in which Shyam Sunder inflicted blows with an axe on the fallen victim. Another neighbour Guru Prasad (PW 4) also came to the scene in the meanwhile. Shatrughan and Guru Prasad succeeded in overpowering the assailant, but by the time Yogwati had slouched her head.
(3) FIRST information was lodged by Ram Sanehi (PW 1) at 1.45 p.m. at the police station. The investigating officer reached the place of occurrence and took Shyam Sunder into custody and seized the axe with which the offence was committed.
(4) THE prosecution examined three witnesses to prove the occurrence. They are PW 1 Ram Sanehi (husband of the deceased), PW 2 Janak Dulari (an eighteen-year-old girl residing in the neighbourhood) and PW 3 Shatrughan (the other neighbour who rushed into the house along with PW 1). The prosecution also examined PW 4 Guru Prasad who became an attestor to the records prepared by the investigating officer who visited the scene on the day of occurrence.
(5) THE defence strategy adopted was to put forth a counter-version of the occurrence as thus: Shyam Sunder had carnal relationship with Yogwati to the chagrin of PW 1 Ram Sanehi. Quite often there were skirmishes between the brothers on account of this. PW 1 while returning from his agricultural field on the said morning found Shyam Sunder and Yogwati in liaison together when the time was around 6.00 a.m. He lost his balance and took up an axe and attempted to finish Shyam Sunder then and there. But Shyam Sunder escaped from the raging swish and fled from the place. Then Ram Sanehi turned against his infidel wife and finished her off by inflicting a lot of blows on her person with the axe.
(6) THE father of Shyam Sunder was examined on the defence side and he supported the defence version. The trial Judge rejected the evidence of DW 1 as "unrealistic and unconvincing". But the trial court relied on the evidence of the three eyewitnesses in full and accepted the prosecution case as true. Consequently, the trial court convicted Shyam Sunder of the offence under Section 302 IPC and sentenced him as aforesaid.
(7) THE Division Bench of the High Court, on the contrary, found the evidence of DW 1 more convincing than the testimony of the prosecution witnesses. We have been taken through the entire material evidence. We are of the considered view that the reasoning adopted by the High Court is unconvincing and u
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