The admissibility and significance of circumstantial evidence, including extra-judicial confession, recovery of material objects, and finger print evidence, in establishing guilt in a criminal case.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Criminal Appeal filed under Section 374(2) of Cr.P.C., to call for the records relating to the judgment passed in S.C.No.367/2017, dated 21.02.2019, on the file of the learned I Additional District and Sessions Judge, Madurai and set aside the same and acquit the appellant/accused from the charges leveled against him and allow the appeal.)

R. Subramanian, J. & N. Sathish Kumar, J.

1. This appeal has been filed by the appellant / sole accused as against the conviction and sentence, dated 21.02.2019, passed in S.C.No. 367 of 2017, by the learned I Additional District and Sessions Judge, Madurai.

2. The appellant/sole accused stood convicted and sentenced to undergo imprisonment, as detailed hereunder:

(Both the sentences were directed to run concurrently.)

3. The brief facts of the prosecution is as follows:

(i) The deceased is the brother-in-law of the accused. The accused married the sister of the deceased. P.W.2 is the sister of the accused. There was a marital discard between the in-laws of the accused i.e., parents of the deceased. The accused was under the impression that the deceased was the root cause for such separation, he tried to reunite the family. However, the deceased threatened his brother-in-law, namely, the accused herein with dire consequences. Besides, he has also threatened his mother, namely, sister of the accused. In view of such happening in the family, there arose the enmity between the accused and the deceased. In order to eliminate the deceased, the accused under the pretext of calling him to his house took him to his old house situated in Middle Street in the guise of cleaning the motorcycle bearing Registration No.TN-59-K-8429. The accused has caused serious stab injuries on the back neck, shoulder, left hip, waist and stomach repeatedly and other parts of the body. As a result, the deceased succumbed to the injuries on the spot. Not stopping with that, in order to conceal the crime, the accused put the dead body in the Septic tank situated in front of his house. The law was set in motion on the basis of the complaint given by the father of the deceased.

(ii) When the investigation was commenced, the accused fearing arrest appeared before P.W.13-Village Administrative Officer and gave an Extra-Judicial Confession statement narrating the manner in which, he has eliminated the deceased and the dead body was concealed. P.W.13 recorded the confession statement of the accused viz., Ex.P4 and handed over the accused to the Police through Ex.P5 report.

(iii) After the accused was handed over to the Investigating Officer by P.W.13, he arrested the accused at 14.30 hours and recorded his voluntary confession Ex.P18. Pursuant to the same, he seized the Lungi and knife from the place shown by the accused and also recovered the dead body from the septic tank situated in front of the accused's house. The firemen working in the Fire Service Department also visited the scene of occurrence and removed the dead body from the septic tank and handed over it to the Investigating Officer.

(iv) P.W.20 Tahsildar, as per the request of the Investigating Officer, went to the place of occurrence. He ordered to exhume the dead body from the place where the accused has shown at 05.00 p.m., on 27.05.2013. The body was removed from the septic tank with the help of P.W.16 & P.W.17 Sanitary workers. They also reached the place of occurrence to remove the dead body from the septic tank at the instructions of the Village Administrative Officer and others and removed the dead body after the police came to the place of occurrence along with accused from the place pointed out by the