DEONANDAN MISHRA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave. The appellant Deonandan Mishra (Deonandan Misir.) who was a stenographer to the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, Patna, has been convicted under S. 302, Penal Code, for having committed the murder of his second wife, Mst. Parbati Devi, on the night of the 3rd/4th September, 1953 and sentenced to transportation for life. The deceased was married to the appellant in or about the year 1941 and was his second wife. As appeals from the subsequent events, she was considered to be a woman of loose morals. She appears to have been forsaken by her husband as also by her father in or about the year 1945 and to have sought shelter in the Anath Ashram at Gaya. Through the intervention of the Secretary of the Ashram and with the consent of both the husband and the father, she got re-married to one Nand Lall of Punjab in December, 1945. After a stay of about an year and a half with Nand Lall in Punjab, she appears to have left him on account of alleged ill-treatment. She came back to the Anath Ashram at Gaya in June, 1947, but left it again in October, 1947. What happened thereafter is not clear from the evidence and her whereabouts between October, 1947 and August, 1953, are not known and do not seem to have been traced. All that appears is that for some time prior to the date of the murder, she was found going up and down in places near about Gaya and that particularly on the 2nd and 3rd September, 1953, i.e., two days prior to her murder she was found going between Gaya and Patna and a place Chakand in between these two places. Early morning at about 7 A.M. on the 4th September, 1953 , P. W.10, Havildar, found a naked dead body of a female lying in the Kabristhan at the outskirts of Gaya about a mile and a half from the police thana. It was lying on the western verandah of the bungalow of the Kabristhan with a number of cut injuries on the neck and on other parts of the body. Report of this was carried to the police and the body was subsequently identified to be that of Parbati Devi, the second wife of the appellant. Investigation followed and the appellant was arrested on the 6th September,1953, and put up for trial in due course.

(2.) There is no eye-witness to the murder and the case against the a appellant depends entirely on circumstantial evidence. The standard of proof required to convict a person on such evidence is well-established by a series of decisions of this Court, of which it is sufficient to mention -'Hanumant vs. State of Madhya Pradesh', AIR 1952 SC 343 (A). This standard requires that the circumstances relied upon must be fully established and that the chain of evidence furnished by these circumstances should be so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused. The learned counsel for the appellant has, therefore, strenuously contended before us that the circumstances relied on have not been fully established, and that in any case they are not enough to bring the offence home to the accused. The various circumstances relied upon have, therefore, to be briefly noticed.

(3.) The appellant belongs to a place called Chakand-dih about a mile and a half from a railway station called Chakand, which is in between Patna and Gaya and which is about five miles from Gaya. It is in evidence that the deceased woman was seen alighting at the Chakand railway station on the night of the 2nd September,1953, at about l0-15 P.M. from a train proceeding from Gaya to Patna and that after so alighting she was found proceeding to the village Chakanddih. It is also in evidence that she took the train again early next morning at Chakand for Patna. The evidence further shows that on the 3rd morning at about 10 o'clock, she presented herself at the Income-tax Office at Patna, and made enquiries about the appellant from a peon of the office, P. W. 12, and that the appellant was informed about this by him. On receiving this information the appellant came out and on seeing the woman told the peon that she was his wife and asked him to make some arrangement to keep her for the day so that he might meet her in the evening after he was free from the office work. The peon accordingly made arrangements for her stay till the evening in the quarters of the Chowkidar, P. W. 22, who lived in the compound of the office. In the evening of that day, i.e., 3rd September, at about 7 P.M. the appellant came to his quarters and took away this woman in a rickshaw. These facts are spoken to by the peon, P. W. 12, and the Chowkidar, P. W. 22. It is further in evidence that after midday on the 3rd September, 1953 the appellant filed an application for casual leave for one day, i.e., 4th September and that leave was granted. That the appellant did apply for leave and got it is not disputed. The next evidence against the appellant is that he was seen that night, travelling with the deceased Parbati Devi in a compartment of the train which left Patna at about 8 P.M. that night for Gaya. This evidence is that of three witnesses, P. W. 1, a daffadar and P. Ws. 3 and 4, two chowkidars, all of whom were on duty at Chakand railway station that night. All of them speak to their having seen the appellant along with the deceased woman in a third class compartment at about 11 or 11-30 P.M. that night in the train from Patna to Gaya when it stopped at Chakand railway station for a few minutes. It is their evidence that they knew both these persons well and that these persons did not get down at that station but proceeded in the train towards Gaya. This evidence, if accepted as it has been by both the courts below - undoubtedly is a strong circumstance against the appellant inasmuch as it makes out that the appellant was last seen with the murdered woman a few hours before the time when the murder must have taken place. This evidence has been strongly challenged. The appellant admitted that the murdered woman met him at his office at Patna in the first week of September, but his case before the Sessions Judge was that this was not on the 3rd but on the 2nd. In answer to questions under S. 342 Criminal P. C. by the learned Sessions Judge, he admitted that the deceased came to the Income-tax Office at Patna, to see him and that he met her there and that he made her stay in the house of the Chowkidar and that he took her from the lodging of the chowkidar in the evening on a rickshaw. But he maintained that all this happened on the 2nd and not on the 3rd and said that after taking her from the lodgings of the chowkidar, at Patna on a rickshaw, he got down at the crossing and gave her money and sent her away. He also added that once formerly she had come to his office to demand money. His case that he met the deceased woman at Patna on the 2nd and not on the 3rd was not accepted by both the Courts below. Not only was there the evidence of the peon, P. W 12, and the chowkidar, P. W. 22, in support of the prosecution case as to the date being the 3rd but a responsible and educated person like the Inspector of Income-tax, against whom nothing has been alleged, has also spoken to the same from his personal knowledge. It is also significant that the appellant when he was questioned under S. 342, Criminal P. C. in the Court of the Committing Magistrate did not specifically put forward his case that it was on the 2nd and not on the 3rd, that he met the woman at his office in Patna. His answers in that Court were bare denials when he was asked whether he saw Parbati Devi at the Patna Income-tax Office on the 3rd and whether he asked the chowkidar to allow her to remain in his house for the whole of the day. His present case that he met the deceased at Patna on the 2nd and not on the 3rd appears to be an afterthought. In the circumstances, the following facts, viz., that the appellant met the deceased at Patna Income-tax Office on the 3rd, that he took charge of her that evening from the quarters of the chowkidar of the office by taking her in a rickshaw, that he was found travelling with her by the night train at about 11 or 11-30 P.M. at the Chakand railway, station and proceeding towards Gaya, must be taken to have been fully and clearly established, as found by both the Courts below.