IMPORTANT POINT
The clear and unambiguous admission of guilt, coupled with established motive, can establish the commission of an offence beyond reasonable doubt.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. - The appellant has been convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The appellant has also been fined Rs. 50,000/- for the commission of the offence.

2. The principal ground urged on behalf of the appellant in questioning the propriety of the judgment of conviction of January 14, 2021 is that only the relatives of the victim came forward to complain or testify against the appellant, though the incident, which is said to have taken place on December 28, 2013 at about 11 pm, was in course of a village function on the premises of the Catholic Church at Mawkohram village when the entirety of the village had congregated to witness a post-Christmas theatre performance.

3. It is also submitted on behalf of the appellant that there are several other discrepancies, including the alleged murder weapon not showing any sign of blood in course of its forensic examination, several of the witnesses trying to embellish their original statements and the contradictions between the oral evidence of several of the prosecution witnesses. In particular, it is submitted on behalf of the appellant that a key witness who is supposed to have removed the victim to a nearby house after he suffered the injury, may not have been present at the place of the occurrence or in the village on the relevant date. The appellant also seeks to point out the discrepancies in the oral evidence of the prosecution witnesses as to the particular house where the victim was carried after he suffered the injury. The most significant point raised on behalf of the appellant is that it is inconceivable that the gathering whereat the entirety of the village may have been present would not throw up any witness to corroborate the version rendered by the relatives of the victim or that a person would be able to approach such a gathering with a dangerous weapon, commit the crime and run away, without being apprehended.

4. The submission of behalf of the appellant is that the investigation was not conducted in an appropriate manner and that since the victim was a prominent member of the village, having been Sordar previously, and one of the brothers of the victim was the head at the time of the commission of the offence, the investigating agency merely took whatever was said by the relatives of the victim as gospel truth without making any attempt to ascertain the veracity thereof. The appellant says that the investigating officer ought to have made an attempt to obtain statements from the other villagers as to the incident or as to whether they had witnessed the same. The appellant submits that in such circumstances, when even the complainant, in the complaint lodged a day after the commission of the offence, did not indicate that she had seen the assailant, the purported admission of the appellant in course of his examination under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 should not be given the kind of weightage as was accorded to it by the trial court as the only basis for the conviction.

5. The incident, as noticed above, took place at or about 11 pm on December 28, 2013. There is little doubt as to the incident having taken place or as to the description of the injury or the cause of death of the victim. However, there are anomalies even in the post-mortem report as to when the body was brought for examination and the date appended at the foot of the report. But what is of importance is that the description of the nature of the injuries suffered corroborated the version of the incident rendered by the complainant and the other witnesses and even though the alleged murder weapon may have been shown to the medical examiner and may have influenced the medical examiner, in response to a question put to such medical examiner in course of his cross-examination, he clearly responded that even if the pick-axe had not been shown to him, he would have indicated that the nature of injury was such as w