MAZAHAR ALI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MAZAHAR Ali and Jasimuddin have been sentenced by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Jammu, to death for an offence under Section 302 R.P.C. and to three years rigorous imprisonment each for an offence under Section 201 R.P.C. by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Jammu, vide judgment and order dated 30 -1 -1975 for the murder of one Raj Singh. The convicts have filed a joint appeal against their convictions and sentences and the learned Addl. Sessions Judge has also made a reference to. this Court for the confirmation of the sentence of death imposed on the said two convicts.

(2.) A birds eye view of the prosecution case may first be noticed. On November 25, 1971, P.W. Gurcharan Singh telephoned the officer incharge of the police post Gandhinagar, Jammu, and informed him that he had been told by Mst. Debo, P.W., a sweepress, about the presence of a gunny bag on the road opposite his house having some blood stains. Shri Piara Lal Mattu Station House Officer, Police Station Saddar Jammu, thereupon got the first information report lodged at the police station and proceeded to the spot. The gunny bag was found opposite the house of S. Gurcharan Singh in Block B. Sector B. Gandhinagar, Jammu, and it bore blood stains on it. The gunny bag was opened and on opening it was found to contain the head of the deceased whose nose and lips had been chopped off. The fore -arms and legs of the deceased were also in the same bag. The photographs of various parts recovered from the gunny bag, exhibit P. 1 to Exhibit P. 14 were taken on the spot. The S.H.O. sent the various parts of the body to the hospital and himself also went there. At about 6 P.M. P.Ws. Dayal Singh and Kartar Singh, brother of the deceased, identified the dead body in the hospital. The various limbs of the body were put together and postmortem was performed by Dr. M. L. Gupta. Shri Mattu, the S.H.O. received information at the hospital that the convicts were the culprits and so A.S.I. Roshan Lal P.W. was deputed to arrest them. On 26th November, 1971, at about 4 A.M. while the convicts were alighting from a taxi driven by Sajjan Singh P.W. they were arrested by the police who was guarding their house. Subsequently, they were taken to the police station and were interrogated by S.H.O. Piara Lal Mattu in the presence of Gurcharan Singh, Brij Mohan and Kartar Singh P.Ws. Mazahar All made a disclosure statement exhibit PB to the effect that he had concealed the remaining parts of the body in the plinth of a house under construction in Gandhinagar Jammu, and led the police party to the place of concealment and got recovered a gunny bag covered by a chaddar containing the various parts of the body of the deceased. The seizure memo exhibit PC was prepared with respect to this recovery at the spot.

(3.) THERE is no eye -witness in the case, and as such, there is no direct evidence. The case depends solely on circumstantial evidence. In order to uphold the conviction on the circumstantial evidence it is now well settled that before conviction in such a case can be sustained it must be established that the evidence is of such a nature that it can lead to no other hypothesis except the one inconsistent with the innocence of the accused. There has to be sufficient material on the record, established by unimpeachable evidence unerringly pointing towards the guilt of the accused. In the light of these accepted principles we shall now examine the circumstantial evidence relied upon by the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused. The circumstantial evidence on which the prosecution relied in the present case may be categorised as follows: