IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that circumstantial evidence must form a complete chain leading to the only conclusion of guilt, with the prosecution bearing the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

JUDGMENT :

Soumen Sen, J.

1. The appeal is arising out of a judgement of conviction awarded under Section 302/201 IPC.

2. The appellant is the husband of the deceased. On the basis of a complaint lodged by Shri Susanta Majumdar (PW1) the brother of Kalpana Sarkar (since deceased) disclosing that his sister was physically and mentally tortured by her husband Yadav Sarkar and ultimately on 22nd May, 2007 in the night he was informed by Yadav at about 11.00 p.m that his sister Kalpana was not traceable. He immediately rushed to S.S Chemical factory where Yadav was residing with his family but could not immediately trace out her sister. It was reported by Yadav that Kalpana had gone out of the room at 10.15 p.m. to attend nature’s call and since then she is untraceable.

3. In the next morning at about 11.00 a.m. dead body of Kalpana was recovered with the help of a fish net from the nearby pond. Susanta alleged that after killing her sister she was thrown into the pond by Yadav as he had an illicit relation with a lady residing at Tinbathimore. This complaint was lodged on 22nd July, 2005 at 13.25 hrs. On the basis of such complaint the investigating officer initiated investigation and examined the witnesses and recorded their statement under Section 161 Cr.P.C. The inquest of the dead body was held and the body was sent to post mortem examination. The IO collected the P.M report and other connected documents and send the visera for the forensic examination. On completion of investigation, the charge-sheet was submitted against the accused under Section 498A/302/201 IPC.

4. After completion of the prosecution and defence witness, the accused appellant was examined under Section 313 in which he had pleaded his innocence.

5. Undoubtedly, the case is based on circumstantial evidence. The law with regard to conviction on the basis of circumstantial evidence has been lucidly explained in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116 : 1984 INSC 121, wherein it has been held as under:

“152. Before discussing the cases relied upon by the High Court we would like to cite a few decisions on the nature, character and essential proof required in a criminal case which rests on circumstantial evidence alone. The most fundamental and basic decision of this Court is Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1952) 2 SCC 71 : AIR 1952 SC 343 : 1952 SCR 1091 : 1953 Cri LJ 129. This case has been uniformly followed and applied by this Court in a large number of later decisions up-to-date, for instance, the cases of Tufail (Alias) Simmi v. State of Uttar Pradesh [(1969) 3 SCC 198 : 1970 SCC (Cri) 55] and Ramgopal v. State of Maharashtra (1972) 4 SCC 625 : AIR 1972 SC 656. It may be useful to extract what Mahajan, J. has laid down in Hanumant case: (1952) 2 SCC 71: AIR 1952 SC 343: 1952 SCR 1091: 1953 Cri LJ 129:

‘12. It is well to remember that in cases where the evidence is of a circumstantial nature, the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should in the first instance be fully established, and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the Accused. Again, the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency and they should be such as to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. In other words, there must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability the act must have been done by the Accused.’

153. A close analysis of this decision would show that the following conditions must be fulfilled before a case against an Accused can be said to be fully established:

(1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established.

It may be noted here that this Court indicated that the circumstances concerned "must or should" and not "may be" established. The