HEADNOTE:

Appellant No. 1, Laxmi Raj Shetty, was convicted and sentenced to death under section 302, Indian Penal Code, by the First Additional Sessions Judge, Madras. for committing the murder of deceased P.N. Gnanasambandam, Acting Manager of the Karnataka Bank, Madras. He was further convicted under s. 392 for having committed robbery from the strong room of the Bank, and also under s. 449 for having committed house trespass with intent to commit the said robbery and murder, and was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for seven years on each of these courts, the sentences being directed to merge in the sentence of death.

Appellant No. 2 Shivram Shetty, father of the appellant No. 1, was convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge under s. 212 and s. 411, I.P.C., and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for three years on both counts.

The Sessions Judge had relied upon the testimony of PW 18, Smt. Kanaka and other prosecution witnesses and had come to the conclusion that the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt was to be drawn had been fully established against both the accused and all the facts so established were consistent only with the hypothesis of their guilt and excluded every reasonable possibility of their innocence.

According to the prosecution, the accused Laxmi Raj Shetty, a trainee-clerk in the Bank, and the deceased Gnanasambandam used to work in the bank after the normal working hours and leave the bank premises together at night around 9 or 9.30 p.m. On the fateful night, the deceased was working in the Bank after the normal banking hours. At about 7.30 p.m. the appellant No. 1 (accused) came to the bank premises, as he used to work late in the evenings and help the deceased. Some time after 7.30 p.m. the deceased went to the toilet where he was struck on the head by the assailant with a stitcher as a result whereof he slumped. Thereafter he was strangulated with a towel and also stabbed to death by a pair of stitchers. At about 9 p.m. the accused was seen coming out of the building by PW 18, Smt. Kanaka. The accused closed the outer door of the Bank and was seen by PW 18 going. He returned with a suitcase, re-entered the Bank premises, and came out with a bag, suitcase and a brief case, and after placing the suitcase on the steps went inside again and came out with a large coffee coloured skybag. He then got an autorickshaw from the Burma Bazar and disappeared into the night in the auto-rikshaw.

On a reference by the Additional Sessions Judge, the High Court confirmed the convictions and sentences of both the appellants. The appellants then appealed to this Court for relief by this appeal.

Dismissing the appeal with a modification, directing that the sentence of death passed on appellant No. 1 be converted into one of life imprisonment, the Court, HELD: The prosecution case against the appellants rested purely on circumstantial evidence. The law relating to the proof of a case based purely on circumstantial evidence has been settled by several authorities of this Court as well as the High Courts. [724F-G]

In cases where the evidence is of a circumstantial nature, the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should in the first instance be fully established, and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. Again, the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency and they should be such as to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. There must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. [725D-E]

The Court did not discover any infirmity in the reasoning or the conclusion arrived at by the Additional Sessions Judge or the High Court. [725F]

The Court enumerated and went through the circumsta