Prashant Kumar Mishra, J.

1. The appellant has preferred this appeal against his conviction by the trial Court under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code ('the IPC' in short) and sentence of life imprisonment and five years R.I. respectively for committing the murder of Shyamkaran (since deceased).

2. According to the prosecution, the deceased was working as Fire Watcher in the Forest Department. On 09.09.2003 the villagers were celebrating Karma Festival, therefore, the deceased, like other villagers, had gone to meet the fellow villagers, but he did not return his house. He could not be traced on 10.09.2003 also. The first informant Jagdish Prasad was informed by one Surendra that he has seen a dead body in the knee deep water of a nearby dam. Jagdish went towards the dam along with Shyamdhar Yadav, Krishna Kumar & Satyanarayan to witness that it was the dead body of Shayamkaran. It is also mentioned in the FIR (Ex- P/16) that the wrist watch of the deceased was misplaced about 8 months back, which was found in possession of appellant's wife. On 06.09.2003 one Urmila had brought back the wrist watch and handed over the same to the wife of the deceased. Due to this incident, the appellant was suspecting on his wife that she has illicit relation with the deceased. He had also raised quarrel with his wife and due to this reason the deceased has been killed by Ramdin, Nandu, Badshah, Gorelal & Ramsharan.

3. In course of investigation, memorandum statement of the appellant was recorded vide Ex-P/4 on 12.09.2003, pursuant to which knife was recovered from the thatched ceiling of the appellant's house vide Ex-P/5; towel belonging to the deceased was recovered from the indicated place vide Ex-P/6 and the baniyan belonging to the appellant was recovered vide Ex-P/7.

4. During postmortem the deceased was found to have sustained four stab wounds, one each below both the eyes; one on left cheek just later on inferior to left eye and one below the left mandible just lateral to chin. In addition neck was swollen with multiple abrasion all over the body and the deceased was found to have sustained fracture of thyroid bone. The postmortem report (Ex-P/9) concluded that the deceased died on account of asphyxia due to throttling, strangulation and cardio respiratory arrest. Death was homicidal in nature.

5. After recording the case diary statements of the witnesses, charge sheet was filed against the appellant and co-accused Nand Kumar @ Nandu @ Nandlal, however, at the end of trial the co-accused Nand Kumar has been acquitted for lack of evidence against him. The trial Judge convicted the appellant on the basis of his memorandum statement and consequent seizure coupled with the FSL report finding blood stains over the knife, towel & baniyan recovered at the instance of the appellant.

6. Assailing the appellant's conviction, Shri Vishnu Koshtha, learned counsel appearing for the appellant, would submit that the sole evidence of memorandum statement and seizure is not sufficient to convict the accused unless the chain of circumstantial evidence is so complete that it eliminates all other hypothesis of innocence of the appellant. He would place reliance on Vijay Thakur vs. State of Himachal Pradesh, 2014 AIR SCW 5625, State of Haryana vs. Ram Singh, AIR 2002 SC 620, Mani vs. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 2008 SC 1021, Govindaraju alias Govinda vs. State by Sriramapuram P.S. & Another, AIR 2012 SC 1292, State of U.P. vs. Arun Kumar Gupta, AIR 2003 SC 801 and Khilawan Kumar vs. State of Chhattisgarh, 2009 (3) CGLJ 14 (DB).

7. Per contra, Shri Majid Ali, learned counsel appearing for the State, would submit that the evidence of memorandum statement and seizure is fully corroborated by the positive FSL report, therefore, coupled with the motive attributed to the appellant, the chain of circumstantial evidence is complete and the conviction of the appellant is well founded.

8. Before proceeding to marshal the evidence adduced by the prosecutio