HARI SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by two persons Hari Singh and Mamdu Singh who have been convicted by the Sessions Judge, Alwar under secs, 302 and 392 of the Indian Penal Code. For the first offence they have been sentenced to transportation for life and for the second one, to five years' rigorous imprisonment each. Both sentences have been ordered to run concurrently.

(2.) THE prosecution story in this case was that on the 7th December, 1950, one Mst. Sarupi wife of Imamkhan of village Jat Allapur went out in the jungle to collect fuel wood at about 2 P. M. She had left her little girl with her husband's brother Noorkhan. When she did not return home till sunset, Noorkhan went to his brother Imamkhan at his well and informed him about it. Imamkhan then organised a search party consisting of about eight or ten persons including Chawkhan, Jaimal, Mohmadkhan, Badsingh and others and went into the jungle to search Mst. Sarupi. It had grown dark by that time and so with the help of fire which they had kindled, they found the dead body of Mst. Sarupi lying in a clump of bushes. Some persons of that party remained at the place of occurrence while Chawkhan went to the Police Station Tijara and lodged a report that Mst. Sarupi was hacked to death and the ornaments on her body were also missing. Bhagwati Prasad Sub-Inspector, thereupon went to the site of occurrence, prepared the inquest report and the site plan and seized among other things an iron scythe with a wooden handle which that woman had probably carried for collecting fuel, a pair of her shoes, three silver rings tucked in a piece of the deceased's ear and another silver ring lying apart. THE dead body of Mst. Sarupi was sent to the Medical Officer, Tijara for post-mortem examination. From two persons named Munshi P. W. 7 and Ashraf P. W. 10, the Sub-Inspector came to know on that very day, that is 8th December, 1950, that they had seen two persons armed with tabbals (scarpines) going towards the site of occurrence. On the 12th December, 1950, he interrogated appellant Mamdo Singh who gave him information about the presence of Mst. Sarupi's ornaments at the house of Hari Singh appellant No. 1. On the 13th December, 1950, he went with Mamdo Singh to Hari Singh's house at village Bolni and recovered one pair of bangles, one pair of pacheli, one pair of karas and buttons of silver at his instance. THEse ornaments were found buried in the wall of the chhappar of Hari Singh appellant's house. THE same day, Hari Singh appellant was arrested and at that time he threw a purse towards his brother's wife Barwan Bai. That was, however, seized by the Sub-Inspector and it was found to contain silver ghugrees which had separated from the chain of buttons, It is also alleged that Hari Singh appellant took the police party to the west of his house at a distance of about 30 steps and from a tent which was used as a stable for his bullocks he took out a tabbal which was buried under ground and on which stains of blood were discovered. It is further alleged that the appellant Hari Singh informed the Sub-Inspector that one silver hansli belonging to the deceased was pawned by him with a: Sindhi shopkeeper for Rs. 30/- at Kishangarh and, therefore, the appellant was taken to Kishangarh. THE appellant led the police party at Kishangarh to the shop of one Kheduram Sindhi from whose shop silver hansli was recovered. It is stated that on the 15th December, 1950, the appellant Mamdo Singh gave to the Sub-Inspector one tehmat of red spoted chunri which he was wearing on the day of occurrence. On the same day, the police recovered at Hari Singh's instance another 'tehmat of check design, one black shirt and one under-wear of blue silk from the heap of rubbish lying towards the north of his house at a distance of about four paces. It is said that * on being asked by the Sub-Inspector, the appellant Hari Singh took him to the house of Hasan Singh from whose chhappar another tabal was recovered.

(3.) WE agree with the remarks of the learned Judges of the Allahabad High Court made in the case of State vs. Shankar Prasad and another mentioned above that it is not possible to lay down any hard and fast rule as to what inference may be drawn from certain circumstances. In the first instance, the circumstances from which the conclusion is to be drawn in a certain case must be fully established. Secondly where the circumstances show that the theft and murder are committed at the same time and if the only evidence against the accused is that of possession of the stolen property of the deceased, it is not generally safe to draw an inference that the accused himself was the murderer. But if there are other circumstances also to connect the accused with the murder, then the fact that he is also in possession of the property which was with the deceased immediately before his murder is a very strong circumstance pointing towards his guilt and should not be lightly ignored. In the present case, the appellant has tried to convince the court that some one was taking away the ornaments of the deceased and when he challenged him, he threw them at him and ran away and that he then picked them up and took them away to his house. In the first instance, this explanation is not easily believable. If any person had murdered Mst. Sarupi with the only purpose of robbing her of her ornaments then he could not just throw them away at the appellant. Still if the evidence against the appellant was that of mere possession of the ornaments of the deceased, we would not have maintained his conviction because it could be explained in other ways and it could not necessarily be incompatible with the innocence of the accused so far as murder was concerned. But in the present case there are two additional circumstances namely: - (1) That he was seen going towards the same direction as the deceased shortly before her murder armed with tabal and (2) that the tabal recovered from the possession of the appellant was found stained with human blood. It is significant that the appellant has given no explanation as to how human blood came on his tabal. The circumstance that the tabal was found buried under ground is also significant because that is not the usual mode of keeping such articles and it lends further support to the other circumstantial evidence. P. W. 8 Dr. Dharampal who conducted the post-mortem examination of the deceased has stated that the injuries could have been caused by the tabal Ex. P. 11. All these circumstances taken together are incapable of reasonable explanation and they clearly, point out that it was none else but the appellant himself who had committed murder of Mst. Sarupi.