JUDGMENT : 

Kamal Khata, J.

1) By the present Appeal, the Appellant seeks to quash and set aside the Judgment and Order passed against the Appellant by the trial Court on 27^th June, 2024, convicting him under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) and sentencing him to suffer life imprisonment and fine of Rs.20,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to undergo rigorous imprisonment (RI) for a period of six (6) months. The Appellant was also convicted under Section 452 of the IPC and directed to suffer rigorous imprisonment (RI) for one year (1) and a fine of Rs.500/- and in default of payment of such fine, to further undergo simple imprisonment (SI) for a period of two (2) months.

2) The case of the prosecution in brief, is as under :-

2.1) The Appellant was residing along with his 3 friends i.e. Santosh Gauda, Prashant Gauda and Jagannath Panigrahi in rented accommodation situated on the first floor at Krushna Nagar Housing Society. Adjacent to his room resided one Mr. Bilet Sone Das along with his wife (the deceased), their minor daughter Riya, aged about 8 months and his brother-in-law, Mohandas. On 16^th January, 2016, at about 4.30 pm, the Appellant heard cries of a woman and rushed out, opened the door of the deceased house and saw an unknown person assaulting the deceased with a knife by holding her from behind, while the daughter was crying. On noticing the Appellant, the assailant pushed the deceased towards him and fled from the house.

2.2) That, the Appellant laid the deceased on the ground and attempted to chase the assailant, who fled towards Gundecha Temple. Despite the chase, he could not catch the assailant. During the course of the chase, the Appellant met his relative, Kailash Sahu, who noticed blood stains on the Appellant. Upon being questioned, the Appellant, informed him that an unknown person had assaulted the wife of Bilet Das with the knife and fled. The said relative, Kailash Sahu came to the house of Bilet Das and dialed No.100, informing the police about the said incident. The deceased was examined by Dr. Firoz Khan (PW No- 20)who declared her dead. On the basis of the statements recorded from the husband of the deceased and the Appellant, an FIR came to be registered against an unknown person.

2.3) During the course of investigation, the Appellant came to be arrested. After completion of investigation the police filed charge-sheet. The trial Court convicted and sentenced the Appellant as noted above.

3) Mr. Sandeep Karnik, learned Advocate appointed through the Legal Aid for the Appellant submits that the impugned judgement is palpably erroneous and deserves to be set aside. He challenges the prosecution’s case on multiple grounds, highlighting serious inconsistencies and evidentiary weaknesses.

3.1) He argues that firstly, the CCTV footage is unreliable due to (i) a time discrepancy of over two hours, (ii) failure to seize the DVR (original source) by the Investigation Agency, (iii) absence of hash value verification, and (iv) doubts surrounding the authenticity of the Section 65B certificate, which was allegedly prepared with police assistance.

3.2) He also questions the alleged recovery of incriminating articles (knife and clothing) due to contradictions between the memorandum statement, recovery panchnama, and witness testimony. He argues that the panch witness Jagannath Udugade (PW-7) provided a conflicting version and described him as a “stock witness,” reducing credibility. Additionally, according to him, the recovery occurred in a public place, not within the exclusive knowledge of the accused, thereby weakening its evidentiary value under Section 27 of the Evidence Act.

3.3) He assailed and criticized the prosecution’s reliance on an oral dying declaration. According to him the three witnesses conduct appeared unnatural, one key witness namely Javi Damaji Patel (PW-19) turned hostile, and there was an unexplained delay of seven days in recording statement of PW-9. According to him, the