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2010 (2) Supreme 244
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
V.S. Sirpurkar and Surinder Singh Nijjar, JJ.
Jiten Besra — Appellant
versus
State of West Bengal — Respondent
Criminal Appeal No. 1499 of 2007
Decided on : 10-03-2010
Facts of the Case :
Appellant was prosecuted herein in the instant case for committing murders of parents of his wife. Trial Court convicted appellant relying upon circumstantial evidence. Appeal thereagainst was Dismissed by High Court.
2. Present appeal has been filed against said order of High Court.
Findings of the Court :
First witness PW-1 barely stated about strained relationship of her and her husband i.e. the accused as also between her deceased parents and the accused. Very strangely,in the First Information Report she had stated that one unknown person had committed murder of her parents.She also admitted that the FIR was written in her house and a number of persons were present there, including the accused.This was a very important piece of evidence, the relevance of which was not realized by the Courts below. From her cross-examination, it was clear that the accused was on visiting terms to her. This did not suggest in any manner that there was such a fierce enmity between the accused and the deceased persons or even PW1. Beyond saying that the relations were strained and further that the clothes of accused were blood stained, prosecution witnesses stated nothing more. None of them, stated that accused was not even on visiting terms.Under such circumstances, Courts should have weighed circumstance as to whether strained relationship was of such fierce nature that accused would go to extent of committing murder of both the parents-in-law. As regards blood stains on the clothes of accused, this circumstance was also of no consequence for the simple reason that the clothes of accused were never sent to Forensic Science Laboratory. No evidence was collected by prosecution that accused alone was present in the hut. On the other hand, it had clearly come in the cross-examination of the witnesses that his parents-in-law were not alone in the hut and in fact the younger brother of PW1 was also present there. Mere presence of accused in the village by itself could not amount to an incriminating circumstance, particularly, when the witnesses had admitted that he was on the visiting terms with his parents-in-law. No witness denied that he was on the visiting terms. Thus, in this case all alleged incriminating circumstances could not be said to have been established. Once it is found that circumstances could not point out towards the guilt of the accused, without any other inference being probable, accused must get the benefit of doubt. Appeal was allowed giving the benefit of doubt to accused acquitting him of all the charges.
Result : Appeal allowed.
JUDGMENT
V.S. Sirpurkar, J. —
1. By this appeal, accused Jiten Besra challenges the judgment of the High Court confirming the judgment of the Trial Court whereby he was convicted for the offence under Section 302, IPC and was consequentially sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life. The accused Jiten Besra is said to have committed murder of one Nandlal Tudu and Mital Bala. The deceased Nandlal Tudu was none else but the father-in-law of the accused, being father of Malati Besra, his wife. It is contended by the prosecution that on the fateful day, Malati along with her mother had gone to attend ‘Boul Song’ and she was also accompanied by her sister Parbati. When they came back at dawn on 21.05.1997, they found that both her parents i.e. Nandlal and Mital Bala were dead.
2. A written complaint was lodged by Malati in Boro Police Station wherein it was alleged that one unknown miscreant might have killed her parents out of previous enmity. The investigation ensued on the basis of this First Information Report and the investigating agency came to the conclusion that it was appellant Jiten Besra who was the perpetrator of the crime. In support of it, the charge-sheet was filed and after the committal of the case to the Sessions Judge, during the trial, the prosecution examined, in all, 15 witnesses which included Malati (PW-1), PWs-2 to 13, who were persons from locality, Partha Sarathi Dhar (PW-14), the doctor who conducted the postmortem of the bodies of the deceased persons and Ram Narayan Datta (PW-15) who was the Investigating Officer. The defence of the appellant was that he was being falsely implicated and there was no evidence against him whatsoever.
3. The defence did not prevail and the accused came to be convicted by the Trial Court relaying on the evidence of the prosecution witnesses. The High Court dismissed the appeal and that is how the appellant is before us.
4. A glance at the High Court and the Trial Court judgments suggests that the Trial Court had relied on few circumstances as also the evidence of the prosecution witnesses. The circumstances relied upon are:
(i) the presence of Jiten Besra in the village on the fateful night;
(ii) strained relationship with his parents-in-law; and
(iii) the blood found on clothes.
The same three circumstances have been relied upon by the High Court also. We must hasten to add that the circumstances on which the Trial Court and the High Court have relied upon are not clearly stated nor do we find any discussion on one very important aspect that in case of the circumstantial evidence the circumstances relied upon must be proved first and should not only point towards the guilt of the accused but they should be of such nature that no other inference except the guilt of the accused, is possible thereupon. We have, therefore, to examine the evidence ourselves from that angle.
5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant has contended that even if all the three circumstances are taken to be proved, such inference of the guilt on the part of the accused is not possible. The contention raised is that both the Courts below have erred firstly, in relying upon the unproved circumstances and secondly, even the witnesses examined including Malati were not sufficient to reach the only conclusion regarding the guilt of the accused.
6. The first witness Malati (PW-1) had barely stated about the strained relationship of her and her husband i.e. the accused as also between her deceased parents and the accused. This witness was the author of the FIR. According to her, she had seen her husband to be present after she came back and realized that her parents were done to death. She also asserted that his clothes were blood stained at that time. Very strangely, however, in the First Information Report which she made almost immediately, she had stated that one unknown person had committed the murder of her parents. She also admitted that the FIR was written in her house and a num
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