RADHAMANI DAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHAT an unfortunate case is this one? The Appellant stands convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, 'the Code') for having committed the murder of a newly born son by strangulation during the night of June 30, 1981, in village Gopalpur in the district of Balasore, whereafter she is alleged to have thrown the dead body of her murdered son into the waters of a pond nearby. She has been sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life.

(2.) IT is not disputed at the Bar that the Appellant, a, widow then, had given birth to an illegitimate child. There was no paucity of evidence that the child had cried after birth. The evidence of the doctor (P.W. 7) who had conducted the autopsy would establish that the child had died a homicidal death.

(3.) THE settled principles with regard to the appreciation of circumstantial evidence may be kept in mind. In a case depending on circumstantial evidence, there is always the danger that conjecture or suspension may take the place of legal proof. The circumstances from which the confusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established and the circumstances 'should be' and not 'may be' established. The facts so established should consistent only with the hypothesis of the accused. The circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency and should be such as to exclude every possible hypothesis except 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 must show that within all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. A case can be said to be proved only when there is certain and explicit evidence and no person can be indicated on pure moral conviction. See Hanumant Govind Nargundkar and Anr. v. State of Madhya Pradesh : A.I.R. 1952 S.C. 343, and Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharastra : A.I.R. 1984 S.C. 1622.