YOGESH KUMAR @ BUNTY Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Having been convicted for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) for murder of one Jitender @ Vicky in Sessions Case No.98/2009 (arising out of FIR No.161/2007, P.S. Rajinder Nagar) and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.2,000/-, or in default of payment of which he was to further undergo RI for two months, the appellant has preferred this appeal challenging the judgment and order on sentence dated 09.04.2010.

(2.) Homicidal death of the deceased has not been disputed by the appellant. In fact, the dead body of the deceased was recovered from the toilet attached to the bedroom of the appellant's house on 17.06.2007 at about 10:30 a.m. Dr. J.V. Kiran (PW14), who conducted post mortem examination on the dead body of the deceased found 11 incised wounds on the dead body. He, in his post mortem report (Ex.PW-14/A) dated 18.06.2007, opined cause of death as haemorrhagic shock consequent upon penetrating injury to the chest via injury No.1, i.e., an oblique incised stab wound 4.5 cm x 1.7 cm x 16.5 cm on lower middle front of neck with the acute angle to the left 11 cm below the chin and obtuse angle to the right 15 cm below the chin. He further found that injuries No.1 and 2 inflicted on the deceased were sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.

(3.) There is no eye witness to the homicidal death of the deceased. The prosecution case rests solely on circumstantial evidence. It is well settled that in case of circumstantial evidence, 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 should be such as to exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. In other words, 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. (See Ashish Batham v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2002 7 SCC 317; Ramreddy Rajeshkhanna Reddy and Anr. V. State of Andhra Pradesh, 2006 10 SCC 172; State of Goa v. Pandurang Mohite, 2009 AIR(SC) 1066.