JUDGMENT

Ganguly, J.-This appeal is from the judgment and order of conviction dated 13.6.2006 of the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Criminal Appeal No. 1303 of 2003 whereby the High Court confirmed the judgment and order of sentence of the learned Trial Judge. The Sessions Judge, Thrissur in Sessions Case No. 224 of 2002 convicted the appellant under Sections 323/302 I.P.C and gave him life imprisonment. No separate sentence was given for Section 323.

2. The material facts as appearing from the judgments are that one Raji, wife of the appellant died as a result of poisoning on having been administered cyanide on the night of 2nd March, 1992. In this case, there are certain admitted facts:

1. The victim Raji was sleeping on the fateful day in the bed room with her husband- the appellant herein.

2. The deceased and the appellant had a love marriage about 14 years prior to the incident.

3. They had three children from the said marriage.

4. There is evidence of mal-treatment of the deceased by the appellant.

5. Their son PW 5 deposed that there were some quarrel between the father - appellant and mother - deceased and with the intervention of neighbours the deceased was sent to her parental home.

3. This happened couple of weeks prior to the death of the deceased. It is also evident from the evidence that the appellant developed suspicion about the character of the deceased and tortured her in the past. There is evidence of the deceased suffering from burn injuries from cigarette buts inflicted by the appellant. Therefore the relationship between the couple was strained. PW 7 Dr. N. Rajaram, Lecturer in Forensic medicine, Medical College, Thrissur who conducted the post mortem examination on the body of the deceased found the following injuries on the body of the deceased. The injuries are set out herein below:

1. Abrasion 0.4x0.1 cm oblique over the back of chest; its lower end 17.5 cm above the hip bone and its upper end 9.5 cm to the right of midline.

2. Crescentic abrasion 0.5x0.1 cm vertical over the back of lower part of chest; its upper end 6.5 cm to the left of midline; its lower end 21.5 above hip.

3. Skin contusion 1x0.6 cm and 1.7x0.8 cm over the front and back of left ear lobule

4. Skin deep irregular wound 1.1x0.3 cm over the back of root of left ear.

5. Lacerated wound 0.3x0.2 cm over the mucosal aspect of upper lip in between the left canine and 1st premolar.

6. Lacerated wound 0.5x0.2 cm over the mucosal aspect of lower lip opposite the lower left canine.

7. Lacerated wound 1.3x0.6 cm over the mucosal aspect of lower lip close to the left angle of mouth and in between injury number 5 and 6. Assailing the concurrent finding of facts, the learned counsel appearing for the appellant made his first submission that the prosecution has not proved that the appellant was in possession of the poison which is said to have been administered on the deceased. The next argument is that the defence suggestion that the deceased committed suicide by taking poison herself cannot be ruled out in view of the fact that the deceased was not going out any where and was simply confined in her house.

4. The next submission of the learned counsel is that there is no direct evidence and the entire case is based on the circumstantial evidence. Since this is a case of circumstantial evidence, the prosecution can only succeed in proving the guilt by the appellant by showing that there is no gap in the chain of circumstances proved by it.

5. We take up for consideration the last submission made by the learned counsel for the appellant. We are inclined to agree that when a case is sought to be proved by the prosecution on the basis of circumstantial evidence, the burden on the prosecution is that it must prove each circumstance in such a way as to complete the chain and at the same time it should be consistent with the guilt of the accused. Any reasonable doubt in proving the circumstances must be resolved in favour of the acc