IMPORTANT POINT
The prosecution failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, lacking sufficient evidence to prove motive or a complete chain of circumstantial evidence.

JUDGMENT :

S.V. PINTO, J.

1. These appeals have been filed by the appellants-original accused under Section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure against the judgment and order dated 07.08.2018 passed by the learned 10th Additional Sessions Judge, Vadodara (here in after referred to as the “learned Trial Court”) in Sessions Case No. 07 of 2015. The appellants-original accused no. 1-Dipakbhai Bachubhai Prajapati and accused no. 3-Ganesh @ Ganu @ Ganio Nilkanth have filed Criminal Appeal No. 1596 of 2018, appellant-original accused no. 4-Subhas Rajendra @ Umajirav Barokar has filed Criminal Appeal No. 1397 of 2018 and appellant-original accused no. 2-Abdul @ Munno @ Thumsup Rahemanbhai Shaikh has filed Criminal Appeal No. 1442 of 2018 and all the appeals have arisen out of the same impugned judgment and order and hence, are disposed of by this common judgment.

The appellants are referred to as the accused in the rank and file as they stood in the original case for the sake of convenience, clarity and brevity.

2. The brief facts necessary to decide the appeal are in a nutshell as under:

2.1 As per the case of the prosecution, the deceased Prahladbhai had loaned some money to the accused no. 1 Deepakbhai to do business of scrap and as the accused no. 1 did not want to return the amount and he had a doubt that the deceased Prahladbhai had illicit relations with his wife, he entered into a criminal conspiracy with the other co-accused and on 30.03.2014, called the deceased on his mobile phone, to settle the accounts to his factory Ambika Stamping situated in Sayajipura Fruit Market, Plot No. 185/268. As per the conspiracy, the accused no. 1 and the deceased were sitting in the office on the first floor and as the deceased left the office, the accused no. 1 gave the signal by starting the side light of Innova car no. GJ-06-ES-1717 with a remote and the accused nos. 2 and 3 went into the office and the accused no. 4 stood outside to keep a watch and as the deceased was getting down the stairs at around 20:30 hours, the accused nos. 3 assaulted him with a baseball stick and the accused no. 1 gave a blow with an iron scissor and as the deceased fell down the accused nos. 1, 2 and 3 took a cotton and plastic thread and strangulated him. That they put his dead body in a white plastic bag in the dickey of Hyundai Verna car no. GJ-16-AA-8722 and the accused nos. 1 and 3 wiped the blood in the factory and the accused nos. 3 and 4 took Activa No. GJ-06-CS-2781 and Samsung mobile phone of the deceased and placed the Activa below Amitnagar Bridge and the mobile phone a little away from the Activa opposite Purushottamnagar Society and placed a brick over the mobile to hide it. That they disposed of the dead body near village Taraswa, Taluka Waghodia, District Vadodara and also threw the pant and purse of the deceased on Waghodia Road. The complaint was filed by Shalin Prahladbhai Shah-the son of the deceased which was registered at Karelibaug Police Station I - C.R. No. 59 of 2014 under Sections 302, 201, 120(b), 34 of the IPC and Section 135 of the G.P. Act.

2.2 The Investigating Officer drew the necessary panchanamas, recorded the statements of the connected witnesses, collected the muddamaal, sent the dead body of the deceased for postmortem, sent the Muddamal to the Forensic Science Laboratory, Ahmedabad for analysis, arrested all the accused and after the FSL analysis reports were received, a chargesheet came to be filed before the Court of the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Vadodara and as the case was exclusively triable by the Sessions Court, Vadodara, a committal order was passed by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate under Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the case was registered as Sessions Case No. 07 of 2015.

2.3 The accused appeared before the learned Trial Court and it was verified whether the provisions of Section 207 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was complied with and a charge was framed against the accu