The sole testimony of a witness with a dubious background and questionable reliability cannot sustain a murder conviction without corroborative evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

JUDGMENT :

ILESH J. VORA, J.

1. The correctness of the judgment and order of sentence dated 03.09.2024 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Surat in Sessions Case No.120 of 2014 is questioned in this appeal. By the impugned judgment, the learned Sessions Judge, Surat convicted and sentenced the appellant–accused under Sections 302 of the IPC and Section 135 of The BOMBAY POLICE ACT and sentenced to suffer life imprisonment and directed to pay fine of Rs.10,000/- and in default thereof, to suffer further one month imprisonment.

2. The facts, leading to file the present appeal are as follows:

2.1 The appellant-accused was being a resident of Surat, doing his business in the name and style of “Krishna Vision” and providing TV channel connection in the vicinity of Madhuvan Society, under the jurisdiction of Kapodara Police Station, Surat. Deceased Mukesh had got the connection illegally without informing the accused party. In addition to that, the deceased was having a complaint about visibility of TV channel and on this ground, to address his complaint and resolve the dispute of illegal connection, on 21.01.2001, at about 8:15 p.m., deceased along with one Gopalbhai, went to the office of the accused where there was heated exchange of words being taken place between the parties on the issue of illegal TV connection. The dispute was aggravated, as a result, the present appellant-accused Ramji Ghusa got provoked and went to his house situated nearby his office and came with sharp edge weapon (Katar) and stabbed the deceased for multiple times and in that process, according to prosecution case, the A1 and A3 in order to facilitate the principal accused – appellant, caught hold the deceased. After the incident, the accused fled from the spot. PW.1 Mansukh Valjibhai being a brother of the deceased received message from his relative about the incident and accordingly, he rushed to the place of incident. The deceased was taken to nearby Private Hospital namely “Ashaktashram Hospital” where the doctor declared him dead on arrival. The Kapodara Police after receiving the message, came at the hospital. Gopalbhai who accompanied to the deceased and had witnessed the incident, informed the PW.1 about the said incident and how the deceased was killed by the accused and others. Based on the input given by Gopalbhai, the FIR came to be lodged, inter alia, alleging the aforesaid facts which was registered as I-C.R.No.26 of 2001 for the offences punishable under Sections 302 and 34 of the IPC and Section 135 of The BOMBAY POLICE ACT .

The investigation was entrusted to PW.11 – Police Inspector, K.B. Jadeja, Kapodara Police Station. During the course of investigation, he recorded the statements of eye witnesses except Gopalbhai because his whereabouts after the incident was not traceable and after due diligence, the I.O. could not discover his identity as well as his permanent residence and other facts related to his identity. The I.O. sent the dead body for post-mortem, drew the panchnama of scene of offence, arrested the accused, seized and recovered the weapon used in the commission of crime, sent the seized articles for FSL purpose, obtained the necessary medical case papers and accordingly, chargesheet came to be filed for the offences as mentioned hereinabove. The case being exclusively triable by court of sessions, committed to the Sessions Court, Surat. The Sessions Court framed the charge against the appellants and two others, upon pleaded not guilty by the accused.

3. In order to prove the charge, the prosecution has examined as many as 12 witnesses and exhibited 14 documents:

Oral evidence