The prosecution must establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, with a complete chain of evidence and the exclusion of every hypothesis except the guilt of the accused.

JUDGMENT :

Goutam Bhaduri, J

1) The present appeal is against the judgment dated 19.11.2019 passed by the learned II Addl. Judge to the Court of 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Raipur in Sessions Trial No.163/2018 whereby the appellant was convicted and sentenced as under :

2) The brief facts of the case are that on 11.05.2018 at about 8.10 a.m., a boy and girl namely Vipin Dubey (accused) and Apurva Tiwari (deceased) have taken a room No.105 in Yatrik Hotel, Raipur and while booking the room, all the necessary documents of ID proof were obtained at the reception counter of the Hotel. Subsequently the room was found to be locked and on 12.05.2018 when bad odor started coming, they saw inside the room through a ladder and found the dead body of a female lying on the bed. The same was informed to the police. Therefore, the merg intimation was recorded vide Ex.P-3 and subsequently the FIR was registered u/s 302 of IPC. After investigation of the case, necessary incriminating articles were seized from the appellant accused and after recording the statement, charge sheet was filed u/s 302 of IPC.

3) The prosecution examined as many as 13 witnesses and exhibited 41 documents apart from articles of driving licence (A-1), voter ID of deceased (A-2), CD Cassette (A-3) and a Pen-Drive (A-4) which were placed and proved. On behalf of the appellant accused, statement of Vikas Tiwari was recorded and in addition, certain documents were exhibited in defence.

4) The learned trial Court after evaluating the facts and circumstances of the case and evidence on record convicted and sentenced the accused appellant as aforesaid. Hence, the present appeal.

5) Learned counsel for the appellant would submit that though the applicant has been inculpated, but the fact remains that there is no substantial evidence to show that the death was homicidal in nature as is stated by P.W.9 Dr. Snigdha Jain Bansal, who conducted the postmortem. He would submit that when the death is not homicidal or culpable homicide, section 302 IPC could not have been attracted merely on presumption. He would further submit that as per the postmortem report (Ex.P-24), certain ligature mark and injuries were said to have been found on the dead body , however, neither the description of injury has shown that whether it is simple or grievous in nature nor any definite opinion was given to show the substantial cause of death. He further submits that the entire case is based on circumstance evidence and even if the suspicion is very strong, it cannot be replaced by proof beyond reasonable doubt. He placed reliance on a decision of the Supreme Court in Ram Pratap Versus State of Haryana (2023) 2 SCC 345 and submits that the chain of circumstances have not been established, therefore, the conviction is bad in law and it needs to be interfered.

6) Per contra, learned State Counsel would submit that as per the statements of witnesses Vivek Tiwari (P.W.2) and Sanjay Kumar Bharti (P.W.5), the deceased along-with the appellant went to the hotel for which the CCTV footage has also been proved. Subsequently, the deceased was found dead. The girl was found dead inside the room and the door was locked from outside the room. In the circumstances, the last seen theory was required to be dispelled which has not been established by the appellant. He would further submit that the details of frequent phone calls is also placed on record to show that the appellant and deceased were in close proximity and even from the hotel room certain pills were recovered and the Whats-App chat would show that they were in relation with each other, due to which, the deceased became pr