The court established that circumstantial evidence must form an unbroken chain leading to the accused's guilt, warranting the dismissal of the appeal against conviction for murder and kidnapping.

JUDGMENT

Anish Dayal, J. This appeal assails the impugned judgment dated 30th July, 2019 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge convicting the appellant for offences punishable under Sections 302/364A/201 IPC, and order on sentence dated 17th August, 2019 awarding sentence of imprisonment for life for offence punishable under Section 302 IPC and a fine of Rs.1,00,000/- (simple imprisonment for five years in default of payment of fine), life imprisonment for offence punishable under Section 364A IPC and a fine of Rs.1,00,000/- (simple imprisonment for five years in default of payment of fine) and rigorous imprisonment for seven years for offence punishable under Section 201 IPC and a fine of Rs.50,000/- (simple imprisonment for one year in default of payment of fine).

The Incident

2. As per the case of the prosecution, Sh. Parvinder Kansal, the complainant registered a complaint in PS Prashant Vihar regarding kidnapping of his elder son Vipul Kansal aged 10 years vide DD No.28A, based on which an FIR No.742/2007 was registered under Section 364A read with 34 IPC and investigation of the case was entrusted to Inspector C.M. Meena. During investigation, it was revealed that the kidnapper made ransom calls on mobile number and landline number of complainant from a mobile No. 9971933571. Accordingly, the relevant numbers were put on interception. The kidnapper initially demanded Rs.1.5 crores but later the ransom money was finalised at Rs.33 lacs, which the complainant arranged and the IO hander over this cash to Mr. Sandeep Kansal and Mr. Om Prakash for delivery to the kidnapper. On 16th October, 2007 at about 11:00 p.m., the kidnapper received ransom money under Ranjeet Singh fly over in New Delhi but after receipt of the ransom money the kidnapper switched off his mobile No. 9971933571. Pursuant to an analysis of call detail records, IMEI numbers and recorded conversations, the appellant was apprehended from his House No. 21/43, 2nd Floor, Old Rajinder Nagar, Delhi. After interrogation, his disclosure statement was recorded and on 17th October, 2007 at his instance, the ransom money was recovered from his bedroom and was seized by the IO. The IO further seized two mobile phones, one Nokia 6600 and other Nokia 6270 at the instance of the appellant along with a Honda City Car No. UP32 BV 8094 used in the commission of the crime. The case property was deposited in the malkhana of PS Prashant Vihar and statements of witnesses under Section 161 Cr.P.C. were recorded. On 17th October, 2007, on pointing out by the appellant, the dead body of the kidnapped boy Vipul was recovered from the left side of G.T. Karnal Road, near village Kumaspur, District Sonipat in the jurisdiction of PS Murthal, Haryana. The complainant identified the dead body as that of his kidnapped son and the information regarding recovery was given to PS Murthal. The crime team and the team from PS Murthal inspected the scene of the crime, inquest proceedings were conducted, and dead body of the deceased child was handed over to the complainant after getting post mortem conducted at general hospital, Sonipat, Haryana. During investigation, IO seized the entry register of the gate of the society having entry of the car of the appellant, two audio cassettes having recorded conversations between the appellant and the complainant on his landline number and at the instance of the appellant, school uniform, school bag and books of the deceased were recovered from 3.5 km ahead towards Delhi from the spot where the appellant had thrown the dead body of the deceased. On 20th October, 2007, the IO recovered and seized one more mobile handset Nokia 9500 at the instance of the appellant from h