The main legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on circumstantial evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

G.P. Mittal, J.

1. Having been convicted for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) for murder of one Jitender @ Vicky in Sessions Case No. 98 of 2009 (arising out of FIR No. 161 of 2007, P.S. Rajinder Nagar) and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/- or in default of payment of which he was to further undergo RI for two months, the appellant has preferred this appeal challenging the judgment and order on sentence dated 09.04.2010.

2. Homicidal death of the deceased has not been disputed by the appellant. In fact, the dead body of the deceased was recovered from the toilet attached to the bedroom of the appellant's house on 17.06.2007 at about 10:30 a.m. Dr. J.V. Kiran (PW14), who conducted post mortem examination on the dead body of the deceased found 11 incised wounds on the dead body. He, in his post mortem report (Ex.PW-14/A) dated 18.06.2007, opined cause of death as hemorrhagic shock consequent upon penetrating injury to the chest via injury No. 1, i.e. an oblique incised stab wound 4.5 cm x 1.7 cm x 16.5 cm on lower middle front of neck with the acute angle to the left 11 cm below the chin and obtuse angle to the right 15 cm below the chin. He further found that injuries No. 1 and 2 inflicted on the deceased were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.

3. There is no eye witness to the homicidal death of the deceased. The prosecution case rests solely on circumstantial evidence. It is well settled that in case of circumstantial evidence, 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 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. (See – Ashish Batham vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2002 (7) SCC 317, Ramreddy Rajeshkhanna Reddy and Another vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2006) 10 SCC 172 and State of Goa vs. Pandurang Mohite, AIR 2009 SC 1066).

4. Mr. B.S. Rana, learned counsel for the appellant has urged that the only incriminating evidence relied upon by the prosecution is the recovery of the dead body from the appellant's house. However, the appellant in his defence has clearly given an explanation that the deceased parted his company and went away with a person supporting a French cut beard. Presence of the deceased with a French cut bearded person has also been supported by PW19. Thus, merely on recovery of the dead body of the deceased from his house, the appellant could not have been held guilty for the murder of Jitender Kumar @ Vicky. Referring to M. Abbas vs. State of Kerala, (2001) 10 SCC 103 and Aloke Nath Dutta & Others vs. State of West Bengal, (2007) 12 SCC 230, the learned counsel for the appellant urges that suspicion howsoever strong it may be, cannot form the basis for conviction of an accused and "between may be true and must be true, there is a long distance to travel" and this distance has to be travelled by the prosecution through unimpeachable evidence which in the present case, the prosecution has failed to do.

5. Elaborating his argument, the learned counsel for the appellant urges that the prosecution has failed to find out the whereabouts of the French cut bearded person. Further, it has failed to collect the call details of the appellant's and the deceased's mobile phones (which were recovered during investigation) to show as to how the two of them met and parted company. The I.O. has failed to obtain the appellant's signature on the various memos