Back
2001(6) Supreme 549
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(From Punjab & Haryana High Court)
K.T. Thomas & S.N. Variava, JJ.
Ravinder Kumar & Anr. -Appellants
versus
State of Punjab -Respondent
Criminal Appeal No. 881 of 2001
(Arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 1118 of 2001
Decided on 31-8-2001
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellants : R.K. Kapoor, P. Verma and Shailendra Bhardwaj, Advocates.
For the Respondent : M.K. Garg and Rajeev Sharma, Advocates.
Held : The attack on prosecution cases on the ground of delay in lodging FIR has almost bogged down as a stereotyped redundancy in criminal cases. It is a recurring feature in most of the criminal cases that there would be some delay in furnishing the first information to the police. It has to be remembered that law has not fixed any time for lodging the FIR. Hence a delayed FIR is not illegal. Of course a prompt and immediate lodging of the FIR is the ideal as that would give the prosecution a twin advantage. First is that it affords commencement of the investigation without any time lapse. Second is that it expels the opportunity for any possible concoction of a false version. Barring these two plus points for a promptly lodged FIR the demerits of the delayed FIR cannot operate as fatal to any prosecution case. It cannot be overlooked that even a promptly lodged FIR is not an unreserved guarantee for the genuineness of the version incorporated therein. When there is criticism on the ground that FIR in a case was delayed the court has to look at the reason why there was such a delay. There can be a variety of genuine causes for FIR lodgment to get delayed. Rural people might be ignorant of the need for informing the police of a crime without any lapse of time. This kind of unconversantness is not too uncommon among urban people also. They might not immediately think of going to the police station. Another possibility is due to lack of adequate transport facilities for the informers to reach the police station. The third, which is a quite common bearing, is that the kith and kin of the deceased might take some appreciable time to regain a certain level of tranquillity of mind or sedativeness of temper for moving to the police station for the purpose of furnishing the requisite information. Yet another cause is, the persons who are supposed to give such information themselves could be so physically impaired that the police had to reach them on getting some nebulous information about the incident. We are not providing an exhausting catalogue of instances which could cause delay in lodging the FIR. Our effort is to try to point out that the stale demand made in the criminal courts to treat the FIR vitiated merely on the ground of delay in its lodgment cannot be approved as a legal corollary. In any case, where there is delay in making the FIR the court is to look at the causes for it and if such causes are not attributable to any effort to concoct a version no consequence shall be attached to the mere delay in lodging the FIR. (Paras 13, 14 and 15)
After referring case law held : In the present case, no doubt, there is apparently a long delay of two days to give information to the police but the bereaved widow was not absolutely certain that she lost her husband once and for all until her brother-in-law confirmed to her, after identifying the dead body, that the same was that of her husband. The initial tension and suspense, undergone by her would have billowed up into a massive wave of grief. It is only understandable how much time a woman, placed in such a situation, would take to reach some level of placidity for communicating to the strangers of what she knew about the last journey of her husband. We therefore find no merit in the contention based on the delay of lodging the FIR. (Para 16)
(ii) Indian Penal Code, 1860-Sections 302 and 201-Murder of a business broker by two businessmen-Proved by circumstantial evidence-Effort to destroy evidence by packing dead body in the form of a parcel to sent it to another place through Railway-Evidence of Rickshaw-puller who transported that parcel from premises of appellants to Railway station-Whether suffers from doubt on his memory to remember this after a long time? (No)-Inability of prosecution to prove the motive-Whether fatal? (No)-Result -Appeal dismissed. (Paras 17 to 19)
Held : We have no doubt that the deceased Amar Kumar Gupta was murdered on 2.2.1994 by ligature strangulation and his body was packed up in a wooden container which was camouflaged as a parcel consignment. Nor has that aspect been disputed by the appellants. The sole question which the appellants seriously disputed was that they were the killers of the deceased. To substantiate that appellants were the real murderers in this case prosecution has presented the following circumstances :
(1) Appellants had dealings with the deceased and a good sum was to be paid to the deceased by way of brokerage.
(2) On 2.2.1994 appellants went to the house of the deceased and persuaded him to go with them up to their house at Mohalla Taj Ganj situated in Harbans Pura. (3) On the same evening appellants engaged PW 5 Daya Ram (rickshaw-puller) to transport a load wrapped in a gunny bag from the factory of the appellants at Harbans Pura to the parcel office of the Ludhiana Railway Station.
(4) Appellants booked the parcel to be despatched to New Delhi on the same evening. When the parcel employees asked certain queries regarding the heavy weight of the load appellants advanced false excuses.
(5) The container was opened and the dead body was disintered. Since then the appellants remained absent from the locality itself for 14 days henceforth.
(6) The appellant Ravinder Kumar immediately on smelling that police suspected him attempted to commit suicide.
(7) On the information supplied by the said appellant the scooter of the deceased was retrieved from the premises of the Railway Station, Ludhiana.
(8) The clothes of the deceased were recovered by PW 17 Investigating Officer on the basis of the information elicited from appellant Ravinder Kumar. (Para 11)
Key Points: - Delay in lodging FIR is not fatal in a case based on circumstantial evidence if there is a reasonable explanation for such delay. (!) - Law has not fixed any time for lodging the FIR, hence a delayed FIR is not illegal. (!) - When there is criticism of delay in filing FIR, the court must look at the causes for the delay; if those causes are not attributable to an effort to concoct a version, no consequence shall be attached to the mere delay. (!) (!) - The bereaved widow's uncertainty about her husband's death and the time needed to regain composure provides a reasonable explanation for a two-day delay in lodging the FIR in this case. (!) - Human memory can retain details of odd or bizarre happenings, such as transporting a load later found to be a corpse, making a rickshaw-puller’s testimony about the event credible despite a time lapse. (!) - Inability of the prosecution to prove the precise motive for murder is not a fatal weakness if the prosecution has succeeded in showing the possibility of some ire or financial dealing between the accused and the victim. (!)
JUDGMENT
Thomas, J.-Leave granted.
2. A railway burial was contrived for eliminating the corpse of a business broker of Ludhiana. The coffin made for that purpose was camouflaged as parcel container to be despatched to a distant destination. But the parcel narrowly missed from being consigned to the railway bogie as some employees at the Parcel Service Center smelled foul. The suspicion led to the disinterring of a strangled body which was later identified to be that of the aforesaid (sic ?) on the main count and to lesser terms of imprisonment on the other two counts. A Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana confirmed the conviction and sentence as per the judgment which is now being challenged.
3. Amar Kumar Gupta (deceased) and his wife Veena were living with their two little daughters (Sonia and Dimple) in their house at Ludhiana. He was making his livelihood through the brokerage earned by him in the business transactions with the manufacturers of hosiery goods. It appears that the two appellants were manufacturers of hosiery articles at Ludhiana and the manufacturing concern was called "M/s. Kapoor Knitting, Harbans Pura", and they had engaged the deceased as a broker for the sale of goods manufactured in their concern. The amount which the appellant owned to the deceased ranged around one lakh of rupees by way of brokerage.
4. Now the prosecution story can be narrated compendiously. On 2.2.1994 the appellant visited the house of the deceased at about 11 A.M. and they had a conversation, presumably about the brokerage claimed by the deceased or due to him. Appellants asked the deceased to go with them so that the accounts could be settled conveniently. Reciprocating the offer the deceased went with them. He rode on a scooter along with Mohan Lal Jain (PW 8) who was a close relative. As they reached the place of the appellants deceased relieved PW 8 who was in a hurry to go away for his own work.
5. The vivid details of what all happened thereafter are not known except that at some time during the day the two appellants murdered the deceased by strangulating him with a ligature. They packed the dead body in a wooden container. It was wrapped in a gunny bag, on the top of which they scribbled the words "To self-Arun Goel; G-1 New Delhi". They engaged a rickshaw-puller to transport the container to the parcel service center adjoining the Railway Station at Ludhiana. PW 5 Daya Ram (rickshaw-puller) collected the load from the premises of M/s. Kapoor Knitting and transported it in his rickshaw to the aforesaid parcel service center. The box was unloaded from the vehicle to the parcel building by the rickshaw-puller with the help of the two appellants and another person.
6. Then the two appellants approached PW 11 who was one of the partners of a parcel service firm and wanted to do the needful for booking the goods for being despatched to New Delhi. It was 4.30 P.M. but they learnt that the next goods train available from that station would be only on the succeeding day. However, PW 11 agreed that the goods would be despatched on the next day itself. But when the Parcel Supervisor weighed the load and found it to be 152 Kgs. he felt something fishy about it. But by that time both the appellants had left the scene. So the container was kept outside the Parcel Office. Perhaps the staff at the parcel section felt that the load was something suspicious and hence they wanted to see what was inside the container.
7. On 4.2.1994 the Chief Parcel Supervisor intimated the police about the suspicious container lying at their office. After the police reached, the container was opened and all of them became stunned seeing a dead body with a ligature tied around its neck and the legs tied up with a string stuffed inside the box. The body was found wrapped with a black glazed paper and the box was wrapped with a gunny bag on which the destination of the parcel was scribbled as mentioned above. The inquest was held by PW 17 Boota R
An indispensable Tool for Legal Professionals, Endorsed by Various High Court and Judicial Officers
Please visit our Training & Support
Center or Contact Us for assistance
Scan Me!
India’s Legal research and Law Firm App, Download now!
For Daily Legal Updates, Join us on :
Back to top
