Circumstantial evidence must form an unbroken chain of guilt beyond reasonable doubt for conviction; inconsistencies in testimony led to acquittal.

JUDGMENT

(Judgment was delivered by N. SATHISH KUMAR, J.

Aggrieved over the judgment of conviction and sentence, dated 31.07.2018 in S.C.No.206 of 2016 on the file of the learned III Additional District and Sessions Judge at Coimbatore, A1 has filed the instant criminal appeal. The accused A1 was acquitted under Sections 120(B) read with 302 of IPC and 364 of IPC, however, was convicted and sentenced by the trial Court as follows :

2.The case of the prosecution is as follows :

2.1.PW1 Mahendran is the brother of the second accused and brother in law of the deceased Pugalendi. Ex.P1 information to the police was initially given by A2. The deceased Pugalendi and the second accused are husband and wife. The 1^st accused had illicit relationship with the 2^nd accused who were working in the same place. On knowing the same, the deceased had warned her wife and he had also warned the 1^st accused that he should not come to his home and talk to his wife. Enraged by the objections made by the deceased, the second accused had called the 1^st accused over phone and instigated him to eliminate her husband the deceased. The 1^st accused Prasath with an intention to murder the deceased, on 0702.2016 bought poison named “Monostar” and had mixed the same with brandy and had took the deceased to GV Residency Park and both had consumed liquor brought separately at TASMAC bar and then the 1^st accused had attempted to administer the poisoned brandy to the deceased. At that time, the deceased had picked up quarrel with the 1^st accused regarding the 1^st accused's affair with his wife and had refused to consume the poison mixed liquor. Therefore, the first accused changed his plan and decided to eliminate the deceased by using knife. Then the first accused left to buy a knife at Sowripalayam Balaji Steel house and brought the deceased to the scene of occurrence and slit the neck of the deceased and murdered him.

2.2.On the basis of the complaint given by A2, an FIR (Ex.P1) came to be registered by the E-1, Sholinganallur Police Station (P.W.19) under Section 174 of CrPC.

2.3.After receipt of the FIR (Ex.P1), P.W.23 (Investigating Officer)

went to the place of occurrence and prepared the Observation Mahazar (Ex.P2) in the presence of witnesses and Rough Sketch (Ex.P20) and also recorded the statements of the witnesses. The accused surrendered on 10.02.2016 before PW6/VAO and confessed the crime. PW6 prepared a report and took the accused No.1 to the police station and submitted the report to the Investigating Officer/PW23 under Ex.P5. Based on the confession, on the same day, he recovered sand, without blood and with blood stain from the place of occurrence, conducted inquest over the body and prepared Inquest Report (Ex.P21), sent request for conducting postmortem, after conducting postmortem handed over the body to the relatives of Pugalendi and recovered the blood stained dress materials from the dead body. Investigating Officer arrested the accused Prasath in the presence of witnesses and obtained Confession Statement from him and recovered the material objects produced by him and altered Section 174 of CrPC to 120(b) read with 302 of IPC and the alteration report is marked as Ex.P22.

2.4.P.W.18 (medical officer) conducted autopsy over the body of the deceased and issued postmortem certificate (Ex.P10) opining that the death of the deceased was due to cut injury in the neck and corresponding internal injuries and death would have occurred 12 to 24 hour