Y. K. SABHARWAL, J.

( 1 ) THE family of Janki Dass comprised of wife, a son, three unmarried daughters and a married daughter. He was a tenant in aportion ofahouseno. B-192,vivekvihar. Delhi. Pyare Lal was his landlord. Jai Kishan is son-in-law of Pyarelal-

( 2 ) IN February 1989 Janki Dass after locking the house left for some unknown destination. On 15th August, 1989 when Janki Dass met Pyare Lal and Jai Kishan he was told to vacate the house as the same was lying unoccupied and Ideked. Janki Dass expressed some difficulty and stated that he will vacate the house after some time. Pyare Lal told him that sometime back police from Rexsol had come in his search as they had found two dead bodies in ahotel in Rexsol and the said dead bodies were of his wife and daughter. Janki Dass became nervous arid said that the dead bodies of his three children were also buried in his house. Janki Dass was taken to the Police. He is alleged to have made a disclosure statement that he can get the bodies of his three children recovered. The lock of the house of Janki Dass was opened by the keys provided by him to the Police and on pointing out of Janki Dass the three dead bodies in decomposed condition were found covered with mattresses and loose earth. The postmortem of the said dead bodies was conducted by Dr. Bharat Singh on the spot as he had advised that it was not possible to remove the dead bodies for post mortem on account of their decomposed condition. The post mortem was conducted on 16th August, 1989.

( 3 ) THE case of prosecution further is that Janki Dass had also taken the Police to the place near the Power House, Road No. 56, Surya Nagar from where he had brought the loose earth to cover the dead bodies and took the police party to a Chemist shop as well from where he purchased becasule and to the shop from where he purchased cyanide. The case of the proseuction is that Janki Dass had administered cyanide to the said three children whose dead bodies were recovered on 15th February, 1989 and after covering the dead bodies with polythene cloth, mattress and loose earth the room was locked by Janki Dass and thereafter on some pretext he took his wife and another daughter to Rexsol and stayed there in a hotel and killed them too in the similar manner by administering cyanide.

( 4 ) BESIDES examining the formal witnesses, the prosecution examined the landlord Pyare Lal and his son-in-law Jai Kishan Narang as PW. 1 and PW. 3 respectively, a neighbour M. M. Chadha (Public Witness. 4), Subhash Chand (PW. 7), Dr. Bharat Singh (Public Witness. 13) who had conducted the post mortem and the Investigating Officer Inspector K. K. Kaushik (PW. 22 ).

( 5 ) ON the appreciation of evidence the learned Additional Sessions Judge found Janki Dass guilty of murder of his three children and also held him guilty of destruction of evidence of murder by burying the dead bodies under the heap of earth in his house and imposed sentence of death on Janki Dass. Janki Dass has filed this criminal appeal challenging his conviction and sentence. The murder reference has been submitted to this court by learned Additional Sessions Judge as required under Section 366 Cr. P. C.

( 6 ) SINCE the fate of the case, to a large extent, hangs also upon the admissions made by Janki Dass in his statement recorded under Section 313 of the code, it would be useful to briefly notice as to what is contained in the said statement and examine its legal effect. Janki Dass admits that he locked his house in the month of February 1989 and left for some unknown destination. The other admissions made by Janki Dass in his statement under Section 313 of the Code are:-

( 7 ) ON his personal search conducted vide Memo Ex. PW. 3/b, two key rings containing 4 keys were recovered alongwith other articles. A disclosure statement Ex. PW. 3/c was made disclosing that he can get recovered the dead bodies of three children from his house No. B-192, Vivek Vihar, New Delhi, from aroom situated in the

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