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Karnataka High Court
State of Karnataka - Appellant
Versus
Marulasiddaiah ALIAS Murali - Respondent
Decided On : 02-16-06
CRL.A. : 1159 of 1999
Facts of the case:
1.The Accused Respondent herein in the instant case was prosecuted for causing death of his wife by strangulation. There was no eyewitness to crime. Case was purely based on circumstantial evidence. The Trial Court acquitted accused Respondent of said charges.
2.Present appeal has been
preferred against said order of acquittal recorded by Trial Court.
3.Findings of the Court : The Court held that Motive for causing death of deceased was not established. Excepting oral say of PWs 8 to 12 parents of deceased no other corroborating material was placed in proof of either bad habits of accused or accused having illicit relationship with any other woman. No convincing evidence was placed on record to establish that accused and deceased were last seen together just prior to death of deceased. Mere statement of witnesses that they saw deceased and accused about a year back in the evening, not helped prosecution to prove circumstances of last seen together. Several missing links were found in chain of circumstances. Even if circumstances relating to cause of death of deceased and recovery of clothes of deceased were proved, yet were insufficient to bring accused nearer to crime. Circumstances established totally insufficient to take view that death of deceased was caused by no other person than Respondent. Reasoning given by Trial Court was possible view emerging from evidence on record. No infirmity was found in finding of Trial Court acquitting Respondent accused.
Result: Appeal dismissed.
( 1 ) IN this case, the case of the prosecution is that, the accused wife died a homicidal death by strangulation.
( 2 ) THE Learned Additional State Public Prosecutor, Sri. N. V. Prakash argued that there is no eyewitness to the incident and as such, the prosecution had proved the case only by circumstantial evidence. According to him, the circumstances are that the wife of the accused was taken away by him from the house of her sister Bhavani on the day previous, With the presentation to her that he was taking the deceased to his village and thereafter, he had returned to the house of the said Bhavani alone. On enquiry, by the said Bhavani, he told her that the deceased who was in. his company was missing in Tumkur bus stand.
( 3 ) ACCORDING to the Learned Addl. SPP, the circumstantial evidences are as follows:"1. That the deceased was in the company of her husband and she was seen last in the company of her husband in the house of Bhavani. 2. That the body of the deceased was found on the railway track in between Tiptur and honnavalli. The last seen theory was proved by the prosecution by examining PW 13- siddarama, the husband of Bhavani, sister of the deceased. 3. That the respondent-accused had done away with the deceased, for he had developed illicit relationship with some other lady and that was spoken to by P. W. 8, Siddaramaiah the father of the deceased and P. W. 12-Gangamma the mother of the deceased. It was also argued by him that the doctor who had conducted the post mortem on the dead body of the deceased had opined that the deceased died a homicidal death by strangulation. To sum up his argument, it was also argued by him that the prosecution had proved the case by circumstantial evidence as above. To sum up his argument, he had also submitted that the deceased wife was murdered by the respondent-accused by strangulation. "
( 4 ) IT is not in dispute before us that the deceased died a homicidal death by strangulation. If that be so, we have got no doubt that the act of strangulation might have resulted in some fingerprints or marks on the neck of the deceased. As we see, the I. O. had a fair opportunity of getting the finger print or marks found on the neck of the deceased developed and further he would have also taken the finger prints of the respondent-accused and developed the same, if at all the prosecution was certain that the respondent-accused only had murdered the deceased. Probably, this would have been a strong circumstantial evidence that was very much available for the prosecution to prove. Since the same was not done, we feel that the I. O. , in the instant case in hand, had let go the best circumstantial evidence to prove before the Trial Court. Probably, the I. O. did not take recourse to that line of investigation for the simple reason that no finger print expert was available to him either at Tumkur or in FSL, Bangalore.
( 5 ) IN this connection, we brought to the notice of the learned Addl. SPP the Division Bench decision of this Court in the case of Ramesh Purdappa Ambannavar and Others Vs State of karnataka wherein, in para No. 46 of the said judgment, the Division Bench headed by Justice padmaraj and the first of us, observed as hereunder:"46. In the context, we may observe here that the Forensic Science play vital role in crime detections today. The well organized criminals in the criminal world, as a matter of fact, hold the society and the law abiding citizens to ransom; of late we are also witnessing organized crimes with international ramifications. That being so, a systematic scientific approach by the investigating Agency to detect the crimes by resorting to the latest techniques and devices is the need of the hour. It therefore appears to us that it is good of the State to give equal importance for development of Forensic Science too in the matter of crime detections by making adequate budgetary provisions to the said Branch also (if not so made yet), so that mor
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