Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court: The appellant-accused filed an appeal against the judgment of the Principal Sessions Judge, Udhampur (‘trial Court’) dated 17-12-2015, whereby he was convicted under Section 302 of the Ranbir Penal Code, 1932 (‘RPC’) and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs 6,000 for committing the murder of his wife (‘deceased’). The Division Bench of Sindhu Sharma and Shahzad Azeem*, JJ., held that there were multiple discrepancies in the prosecution’s story and contradictions in the statements of important witnesses and hence gave the accused the benefit of doubt and acquitted him.
Background:
The complainant, who was the deceased’s brother, alleged that he and his sister were sleeping in the room. At around 02:00 a.m. on 27-10-2012, the accused entered the room armed with a wooden staff and a sickle and started assaulting his wife. The accused also pinned him down with foot and took out kerosene oil from the lamp and set the bedding on fire. The complainant managed to escape and informed two other people sleeping in their rooms. All three of them rushed back, but by then, the accused had fled the spot.
A case was registered against the accused under Section 302 RPC and Sections 4 and 25 of the Arms Act, 1959. Thereafter, the accused was arrested and based on his disclosure, the weapons of offence i.e., blood-stained wooden staff and sickle were recovered and seized. The accused and the deceased also had a baby who was 2.5 years old at the time of the occurrence and was present in the room. It was alleged by the prosecution that the motive of the murder was that the accused was suspicious that in his absence, the deceased had developed extra-marital relations. The trial Court convicted the accused relying on the complainant’s testimony.
Analysis and Decision:
The Court observed that there were many contradictions, improbabilities, discrepancies, improvements, conflicting opinion of the experts, etc., and therefore, the justification of the trial Court that the complainant’s testimony was of sterling nature did not inspire confidence, as it was overshadowed by doubt and consequently, rendered the prosecution case unworthy of reliance.
The Court remarked it was surprising that, “the trial Court somewhere missed to take note as to what happened to the little baby who was said to have sustained burn injuries on the back, but neither provided medical treatment nor a slight attempt was made that if accused was the author of the crime and was present on the spot why he did not make effort to evacuate his two and a half years old son from the raging flames, till one of the two people who were sleeping in their rooms, arrived and evacuated the toddler to his room”. The Court quoted Aristotle, who in his work Nicomachean Ethics, discussed the deep love parents had for their children, which aligned with the idea that a father would risk his life to save his child.
The Court, therefore, concluded that the prosecution case suffered from the following shortcomings:
- There were variations in the initial report and the deposition given by the complainant regarding the way the deceased was allegedly set on fire; burn injuries sustained by the baby and after commission of alleged offence how the accused fled from the spot.
- There were contradictions regarding the type of weapons used; the manner in which the deceased was assaulted and the nature of injuries caused by such weapons.
- The recovery of alleged weapons of offence was marred by the discrepancies and contradictions as the FSL Expert stated that there was blood on the staff but not on the sickle whereas the Sarpanch, who was a witness to the recovery, deposed that the seized sickle and wooden staff had the blood stains but wooden staff shown to him in the Court did not contain blood stains, however, the sickle still contained the blood stains.
- There was an unexplained delay in dispatching the special report to the Illaqa Magistrate. The prosecution alleged that there was a two-day delay because of intervening Saturday and Sunday. But the Court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in State of Rajasthan v. Teja Singh, (2001) 3 SCC 147, and held that not sending the report due to public holidays was irrelevant and the police were duty bound to send it immediately without any fail.
- The post-mortem was conducted in the private house for which the doctor and the Investigating Officer (‘IO’) put forth contradictory reasons. The doctor cited the protest of the public to be the reason for not conducting the post-mortem in the hospital but the IO deposed that post-mortem on the dead body of the deceased was conducted in the house as she was already dead and thus, the question of taking the body of the deceased to the dispensary did not arise.
- The doctor was not shown the weapon of offence to confirm the nature of injuries sustained by the deceased, with such weapons.
- The doctor issued the post-mortem report after 22 days and failed to show as on what basis, he prepared the report after such a long gap between the actual conducting of the post-mortem and the issuance of the report, particularly how he memorized the alleged multiple wounds of different dimensions.
- There was also contradiction as to the day and time of arrest of the accused. The accused admitted that he was arrested on 27-10-2012 at 09:00 a.m. which was supported by the testimony of the deceased’s sister. But the IO deposed that they made a search of the accused and arrested him on 29-10-2012 at 03:15 p.m. upon identification by one of the two people who were sleeping in their rooms.
- There were also contradictions as to the day and time of visiting of police officers and expert witnesses to the place of occurrence, which casted a doubt on the veracity of investigation.
- The prosecution had also withheld the important witnesses without any plausible reason.
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The prosecution had attributed a specific motive for the crime but failed to prove it. The IO submitted that the motive for the murder of the deceased was her extra marital relation and despite the accused counseling and advising the deceased, she did not budge from such acts, which led to the killing of the deceased at the hands of the accused. But this was not supported by any of the prosecution witnesses.
For the above-mentioned reasons, the Court could not concur with the findings of the trial Court, particularly when on every point under consideration, the Court noted deficiencies and flaws, which were staring at the heavy burden casted on the prosecution to prove the guilt beyond all shadow of doubt so as to rebut the presumption of innocence, which was the cornerstone of criminal jurisprudence, and therefore held that the accused could not be sent behind bars by curtailing his liberty on the basis of such fragile prosecution evidence.
The Court gave benefit of doubt to the accused, set aside the judgment of the trial Court and acquitted him.
[Maan Chand v. State (UT of J&K), 2025 SCC OnLine J&K 645, decided on 1-7-2025]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Shahzad Azeem
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Anmol Sharma, Advocate.
For the Respondent: Raman Sharma, AAG with Saliqa Sheikh, Advocate.
