The main legal point established in the judgment is that circumstantial evidence, including identification parades and recovery of incriminating articles, can be sufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The court also emphasized the principle that justice cannot be made sterile on the plea that it is better to let a hundred guilty escape than punish an innocent.

Mohammad Rafiq, J.

1. All these four appeals are directed against judgment and order dated 03.06.2016 passed by the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge No. 3, Alwar, in Sessions Case No. 111/2011, whereby accused-appellant Sher Singh @ Sheru was convicted for offence under Sections 396, 201 IPC and Section 4/25 of the Arms Act, whereas accused-appellants, namely, Yuvraj @ Sonu, Ravindra and Satish @ Leelu have been convicted for offence under Sections 396 and 201 of the IPC. For offence under Section 396 IPC, the accused-appellants have been sentenced to undergo simple life imprisonment with fine of Rs. 25,000/- each; in default of payment of fine each to further undergo additional two years imprisonment. For offence under Section 201 IPC, the accused appellants have been sentenced to undergo seven years simple imprisonment each with fine of Rs. 10,000/- each; in default of payment of fine each to further undergo one year's additional imprisonment. For offence under Section 4/25 of the Arms Act, accused-appellant Sher Singh @ Sheru has been sentenced to undergo one years' simple imprisonment with fine of Rs. 1000/-; in default of payment of fine, he has to further undergo three months' additional imprisonment.

2. Brief facts giving rise to these appeals are that on 02.06.2011 one Rajendra Prasad S/o Shri Chaina Ram Raigar, submitted a written report to the Station House Officer, Police Station Narainpur, District Alwar, on the basis of which the police registered regular First Information Report No. 53/2011 for offence under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, 'the IPC'). In the written report, it was alleged that on that date at 10:00, he received a telephonic information from a villager that dead body of a naked person was lying two kilo-meters ahead of Talvraksh road towards Alwar. Someone has murdered him by slitting his neck. It appears that he was murdered elsewhere but his dead body has been thrown at that place. In order to destroy the evidence, clothes of the deceased have also been removed. The police after investigation filed charge-sheet against the accused-appellants for offence under Sections 302 and 201 IPC as also under Section 4/25 of the Arms Act. The case being exclusively triable by a Court of Sessions, was committed to the Court of the District & Sessions Judge, Alwar and ultimately that came to be transferred to the Court of Additional Sessions Judge No. 3, Alwar for trial. The trial court framed charges against the accused-appellant Sher Singh for offence under Sections 396, 201 IPC and Section 4/25 of the Arms Act, whereas against accused appellants Yuvraj @ Sonu, Ravindra and Satish @ Leelu the charges were framed for offence under Sections 396 and 201 of the IPC. Later on the learned trial court additionally framed charge against the accused-appellants for offence under Section 302/149 IPC. The charges were read over to the accused-appellants. They denied the charges and claimed to be tried. The prosecution produced 27 witnesses and also exhibited 105 documents in support of its case. The defence produced one witness Daya Ram as DW-1 and exhibited eight documents from Exhibit D-1 to D-8. After hearing learned counsel for the parties, the learned trial court held the accused-appellants guilty of the charges and accordingly convicted and sentenced them as indicated above. Hence these four separate appeals on behalf of four accused-appellants.

3. Mr. Vinay Pal Yadav, learned counsel for accused-appellant Satish @ Leelu, has argued that the case of the prosecution is mainly based on three circumstances, namely, last seen, recovery of articles and finger prints. It is argued that evidence of last seen can be relied against the accused only where time gap between the point of time, when the accused and the deceased were last seen alive together and later when the deceased found dead, is so small that it can be inferred that possibility of any person other than the accused