IMPORTANT POINTS
(1) Conviction of accused cannot be based on shaky evidence.
(2) Omission to frame a particular charge – Court must act with a broad vision and look to substance and not to technicalities.

JUDGMENT :

HEMANT GUPTA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Chintambaramma, Mother-in-law and Saraswathi, Sister-in-law of the deceased Sahitya are in appeal against the judgment dated November 20, 2017 maintaining conviction of the appellants for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC. The appellants were sentenced to imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs.10,000/- each was imposed upon them.

3. The marriage of deceased Sahitya was solemnised with L. Manjunatha on March 10, 2006. An FIR was lodged on August 25, 2009 by CW 1- Smt. Anjanamma that Sahitya has been killed by the appellants along with L. Manjunatha, Lakshmi, Raghavendra and Arunakumari. On the basis of FIR, the investigation was conducted by the Investigating Officer Manjunath (PW-18). Dr. S. Venkataraghava (PW-21) conducted postmortem. He noticed multiple nail scratches, abrasions over the face, around the mouth, maxilla, over the right-side neck, nail scratch abrasions over the lower part of the middle of neck and inner aspect of the right-side lower lip. Earlier, Dr. Bhakthavatsala (PW-22) initially examined the deceased when called by the Ramesh (PW-19). He reported that she was dead.

4. Initially, the allegations against the appellants were of demand of dowry and that the assailants were Adinarayana, accused No. 4 and Venkatesna, accused No. 5 who committed the act of murder in conspiracy with the other accused. The relatives of the deceased were examined as Anjanamma (PW-1), Obalesh (PW-3), Shankar (PW-4), Harikrishna (PW-6) and Vijayakumar (PW-7). They have not supported the prosecution case as they turned hostile. There is no evidence of demand of dowry or cruelty on account of demand of dowry. The learned trial court recorded the following findings:

“34. So, from the evidence on record, there is no cogent and clinching evidence to believe in the case of the prosecution that the accused were ill-treating and harassing the deceased Sahitya demanding her to bring more dowry from her parents house and also A.I had an illicit relation with A.8 and due to this reason, they used to assault and abuse the deceased Sahitya. Therefore, the prosecution has miserably failed to prove the alleged guilt against the accused beyond all reasonable doubts that the accused were ill-treating and harassing the deceased. Hence, I answer point No. 2 in the negative.”

5. However, the learned Trial Court convicted the appellants and L. Manjunatha, husband of the deceased having conspired the murder of Sahitya with accused Nos. 4 and 5 but there is no evidence against accused Nos. 6 to 8. Consequently, accused Nos. 6 to 8 were acquitted by the Trial Court. However, in appeal, the High Court acquitted L. Manjunatha but maintained sentence upon the appellants. While convicting the appellants, the High Court recorded the following findings:

“16. …The conduct of accused Nos. 2 and 3 going to the house of PW-20 and staying there for two hours has remained a mystery. According to PW.20, accused Nos.2 and 3 returned to their house at about 6.00 p.m. Further, her evidence suggests that two strangers who had come to the house of the accused had gone away at about 5.00 p.m. Thereafter, at about 8.30 p.m., accused Nos. 2 and 3 are stated to have called PW-19 her husband stating that the deceased was not waking up. PW-19 has deposed that he brought PW-22 Dr. Bhakthavatsala who told them that the death might have taken place about three hours earlier to his examination. If this timing is accepted, the death might have taken place only after 5.00 p.m. or 6.00 p.m. that is, after accused Nos. 2 and 3 returned to their house. Thus, from the evidence of PW-19 and PW-20, it could safely inferred that when the deceased met with her death, only accused Nos. 2 and 3 were in the house. Therefore, the theory put forward by the prosecution that accused Nos. 4 and 5 murdered the deceased when accused Nos. 2 and 3 were not in the house, appears to be highly improbable and unbelievable.”

6. The High Cou