The main legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on circumstantial evidence and the applicability of Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act in establishing the guilt of the accused appellants.

Sunil Kumar Garg, J.-All the abovementioned four appeals files by the accused appellants from jail are being decided by this common judgment as all of them have been preferred against the common judgment and order dated 112.1999 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge No. 2, Bikaner in Sessions Case No. 5 7/97 by which he convicted the accused appellants for the offence under sections 396, 460 and 461 IPC and sentenced each of them in the following manner-

Name of accused appellants Convicted under section Sentence awarded

1. Deepak 2. Ummalo 3. Sanwal Das 4. Prasanto396 IPC Imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 100/-, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo simple imprisonment for one month.

460 IPC Ten years SI and to pay a fine of Rs. 100/-, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo SI for one month. 461 IPC One year SI and to pay a fine of Rs. 50/-, in default of payment of fine, to further undergo SI for 15 days. All the substantive sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

2. It may be stated here that in the alleged incident, there were five accused persons and since one of the accused, namely, Dharma Phukan was child at the relevant time, therefore, his case was sent to the Children Court, Bikaner and he was not tried alongwith the present four accused appellants.

3. It may further be stated here that the accused appellants were not convicted for the offence under Section 302 IPC as they were already convicted and sentenced for the offence under Section 396 IPC and it was further ordered by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge No. 2 that Rs. 24,200/-be given to PW5 Jagdish Prasad.

4. It may further be stated here that since these appeals were preferred by the accused appellants from jail and the accused appellants were not being represented by any counsel, therefore, this Court appointed Amicus Curiae in the following man-ner:-

S. No.Appeal No. Date of order Name of amicus curiae

1.33/2000 Depak vs. State24.09.2001 Mahendra Goyal

2. 24.09.2001 Mahendra Goyal 24.09.2001 A. Bhansali

3. 34/2000 Ummalo vs. State 24.09.2001 P.C. Solanki

4. 35/2000 Sanwal Das vs. State 24.09.2001 Vijay Purohit

5. The facts giving rise to these jail appeals, in short, are as follows:

On 3.1997 at about 9.00 AM, PW5 Jagdish Prasad lodged an oral report with the Police Station Nokha District Bikaner stating inter-alia that there was a cement factory known as Sarvotam Cement Private Limited, Charkada belonging to him situated on the road going from Nokha to Nagaur. It was further stated in the report by PW5 Jagdish Prasad that his elder brother Bhanwar Lal Daga used to live in the factory premises and a day before the alleged incident, he had already left for Jaipur. It was further stated in the report by PW5 Jagdish Prasad that on 3.1997 in the morning at about 8-8 1/4 AM, his factory servant Bahadur Singh (PW7) informed him at Nokha through telephone that in the varanda of the office of the factory, there was blood and upon this, he went to the factory where he found blood lying on the floor of the varanda of the office of the factory and thereafter, he entered in the office room where the account books were to be kept and found Bhanwarlal, Munim of the factory (hereinafter referred to as the deceased) lying on the floor dead and he found huge blood around the body of the deceased and he also found many injuries on his body. It was further stated in the report by PW5 Jagdish Prasad that the safe box lying in the room was found open and thus, he came to the conclusion that some unknown persons had entered in the office room and after murdering the deceased, they took away the amount kept in the safe box.

PW12 Nand Lal, SHO, Police Station Nokha reduced that report into writing and chalked out regular FIR Ex.P/52 for the offence under sections 302, 460, 394, 34 IPC and started investigation.

After reducing that report into writing, PW12 Nand Lal reached on the spot alongwith photographer and vedeo-grapher and prepar