Conviction for murder and evidence tampering requires proof beyond reasonable doubt; circumstantial evidence and valid confessions must corroborate the prosecution’s claims.

1. This appeal is against a judgment dated 10th August, 2006, passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court, Dinhata, in Sessions Trial No.13 / June / 2003 corresponding to Sessions Case No.12/2002 arising out of Dinhata Police Station Case No.37/01 dated 22.02.2001, whereby the accused appellant has been found guilty and convicted of murder and of causing disappearance of evidence under S.302/201 of the Indian Penal Code and an order of sentence dated 11th August, 2006 whereby the accused appellant has been sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay fine of Rs.10,000/-, in default whereof he is to suffer further rigorous imprisonment for three years, for offence under S.302 of the Indian Penal Code , and to suffer rigorous imprisonment for five years and fine of Rs.3,000/- in default whereof he is to suffer rigorous imprisonment for further one year, for offence under S.201 of the Indian Penal Code . The sentences were to run concurrently.

2. Sometime in April 2000, Fulti Barman, who was nineteen years old, got married to the accused appellant. At the time of her marriage with the accused appellant, both her parents were dead, and she lived with her maternal uncle, Rajani Kanta Bakshi, who is the de facto complainant. Unfortunately, the marriage was not a happy one and it soon soured.

3. On or about 17th February, 2001, Fulti's maternal uncle Rajani Kanta Bakshi, the de facto complainant, was informed by the accused appellant that Fulti was missing from her matrimonial home. Thereafter, the de facto complainant Rajani Kanta Bakshi, maternal uncle of Fulti and other relatives and acquaintances started searching for Fulti, but they could not find her anywhere.

4. From the tenor of the evidence of the relatives of Fulti, who deposed as Prosecution Witnesses, it appears that after their futile search for Fulti, they started suspecting the involvement of the accused appellant, in her disappearance, and started questioning the appellant. Some of the relatives of Fulti, who have deposed in Court as Prosecution Witnesses, have said that there were inconsistencies in the answers of the accused appellant to questions put to him by different persons enquiring exactly where Fulti had gone. The accused appellant once said, she had gone to visit a relative, and later said that she had gone to a 'Kabiraj' to get an amulet and / or 'tabeez'. The accused appellant claimed that he did not know where Fulti had gone.

5. A 'Salisi' was held in the house of the accused appellant's aunt Baccha Buri, with whom the accused appellant lived, but he refused to divulge what exactly had happened, on the plea of ignorance. Later, on or about 23rd February, 2001, relatives of Fulti, other respectable persons and villagers gathered, in the house of Lalit Chandra Ray, Ex Prodhan. The accused appellant who also came there was subjected to a spate of questions.

6. Under the pressure of incessant questioning, the accused appellant started faltering, and his facial expression started revealing his guilt. The accused appellant, thereafter, went to a separate room with Lalit Chandra Roy and confessed that he had murdered his wife by strangulating her and had hidden her dead body in a field behind his house.

7. The said Lalit Chandra Ray, Ex Prodhan, took the accused appellant to Bhetaguri Police Camp and he informed the Dinhata Police Station over the telephone. Police Officers from the Dinhata Police Station came