Riazuddin @ Ramesh vs State Of Nct Of Delhi
2016 Latest Caselaw 405 Del

*     IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
                                   Judgment Reserved on: January 14, 2016
%                                  Judgment Delivered on: January 19 , 2016
+                         CRL.A. 241/2000
      RIAZUDDIN @ RAMESH                                ..... Appellant
                   Represented by:            Mr.M.L.Yadav, Advocate.

                          versus

      STATE OF NCT OF DELHI                              ..... Respondent
                    Represented by:           Mr.Varun Goswami, APP for
                                              the State.

CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE PRADEEP NANDRAJOG
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MUKTA GUPTA
MUKTA GUPTA, J.

1. On June 24, 1987 at about 1.30 AM an information was received at PS Alipur recorded vide DD No.45-B from Mohd.Rafiq informing that his daughter Shehnaaz has been murdered by her husband Riazuddin and an officer be sent at the spot. This information was given by Mohd.Rafiq as Mushtaaq, Bhoole Ram (PW-14), Ram Nakshattar (PW-7) and Chander had come to his house at Jahangir Puri at about 1.00 AM on June 24, 1987 and awakened him informing that his daughter had been killed by her husband and in-laws i.e. Riazuddin, Hamid Ali, Chahat Ali and Kasturi. When they reached the house of the accused persons Kasturi was present, however neither Shehnaaz nor Riazuddin nor Hamid Ali nor Chahat Ali were present. The Police party searched the area near the house and towards the south of the village in between two brick kilns they found a freshly dug earth at about 6.00 AM on June 24, 1987. On digging the earth they noticed a gunny bag

on which Inspector Kishan Singh PW-20 stopped the proceedings and left to Tis-Hazari to inform the local Magistrate and the SDM. Inspector Kishan Singh returned with Shri Aashutosh PW-22 to the village and the sack was pulled out from the pit. On opening the same it was found to contain headless body of a female having 5 bangles in the right arm, a thin chain with some beads on the neck and two rings in the toe fingers. Mohd.Rafiq (PW-8), Ansaar Ahmed (PW-2) and Mohd.Shabbir (PW-3) identified the body to be that of Shehnaaz from her bangles, rings, necklace and body structure.

2. Post-mortem of the body was conducted and Dr.Bharat Singh PW-9 found the following injuries:

"Neck had been cut at the base with multiple strokes of injuries. Margins were clean cut and regular, skin was hanging loose at places where different strokes had been applied. All the neck structures were cut in a sharp manner. Seventh cervical vertabra had been cut in a sharp manner and its upper 2/3 rd. Clotted blood was present in the soft tissues at the margins of the wound. There was no other injury on the body.

Internal examination. Lungs were pale and collapsed and bloodless. Heart was empty, ribs were intact. All abdomen organs were pale. Stomach was empty. Utress was empty. Bladder was empty. Viscera was preserved and sealed for chemical analysis as desired by the Police.

Injury was ante-mortem, caused by sharp object. Death was due to decapitation by sharp object. Time since death was about 44 hours. Skin from the margins of the wound were handed over to the Police for matching."

3. On July 13, 1987 Riazuddin and Hamid Ali surrendered before the Court. On a Police remand being granted Riazuddin got recorded his disclosure statement Ex.PW-11/A disclosing that the head of Shehnaaz had

been buried along with clothes at a distance of about 1 kilometre from the place where the body had been buried and pointed out to the place which had sunk due to rains. On removing the soil, part of head was seen. Inspector Kishan Singh obtained permission from the Magistrate concerned to disinter the head and thereafter Riazuddin was asked to dig the place shown by him. On digging, head of Shehnaaz with her salwar, kurta and chunni of pink colour were recovered from the pit. The head and clothes of Shehnaaz were identified by her father Mohd.Rafiq PW-8 and the head was sent for post-mortem.

4. On July 17, 1987 Dr.Bharat Singh PW-9 who conducted the post- mortem of skull opined that the same belonged to the trunk which had been examined by him on June 25, 1987. A portion of the tissue of the neck region was removed and handed-over to the Police for grouping and matching. According to him the skull belonged to a female aged about 25 years and had been separated from the body by a sharp object. According to him the duration of death was approximately one month.

5. On July 20, 1987 Chahat Ali surrendered in the Court and while in Police custody he got his disclosure statement recorded vide Ex.PW-12/A. He disclosed that he had hidden the weapon of offence by the side of a hut near a Mazaar on the outskirts of village Bhalaswa. He led the Police party to the hut and on digging the earth recovered a knife Ex.P-20. Dr.Bharat Singh PW-9 on examining the knife Ex.P-20 opined that injuries described in both the post-mortem reports were possible by Ex.P-20.

6. Mohd.Rafiq who identified the head of his daughter along with the clothes also produced a bush-shirt Ex.P-5 belonging to his son informing that the bush-shirt was stitched from the same left-over cloth from which the

salwar and kurta recovered with the head of Shehnaaz was made. The bush- shirt of the son of Mohd.Rafiq and the clothes recovered from the pit were sent to CFSL. As per the report of CFSL Ex.PW-5/A the salwar and the ladies shirt recovered with the head of the deceased and the bush-shirt of the brother of the deceased were from the same cloth and matched in respect of their colour, print, design and other weaving characteristics.

7. Hamid Ali passed away during the course of trial and thus proceedings qua him abated. As against Kasturi Devi the mother-in-law the case of prosecution was an extra-judicial confession allegedly made by her before one Mushtaaq who was not examined by the prosecution and thus no statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C. of Smt.Kasturi Devi was recorded and she was acquitted. The learned Trial Court vide the impugned judgment also acquitted Chahat Ali but convicted Riazuddin for the offence punishable under Section 302 IPC and awarded him imprisonment for life and a fine of `1000/- and in default of payment of fine to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further period of 6 months. Hence the present appeal by Riazuddin.

8. Learned counsel for the appellant contends that the present case is based solely on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of the witnesses taken in its entirety does not inspire confidence, is full of material contradictions and improvements and does not form complete chain of events leading to the irresistible conclusion that Riazuddin committed the alleged offence. The FIR is ante timed and the witnesses have been introduced. The recovery of the torso and the head separately cannot be believed nor can the recovery of the clothes. It is unbelievable that though Chahat Ali surrendered after 25 days of the alleged incident he still kept the weapon of offence intact and got it recovered. The disclosure statement of

Riazuddin is tampered and cannot be relied upon. Riazuddin does not sign in Hindi however, signatures in Hindi and English both have been done on the alleged disclosure statement.

9. As noted above the case of the prosecution rests primarily on the statement of Mohd.Rafiq PW-8 father of the deceased whose version has been noted above. The version of Mohd.Rafiq about the information given on the intervening night of 23rd/24th of June 1987 is corroborated by the testimony of Ram Nakshattra PW-7 and Bhoole Ram PW-14. Ram Nakshattra has stated that on the night of 23rd/24th June, 1987 Bhoole Ram came to him with Ashfaq and informed about the murder that has taken place in their village and that a lady whose father's name he did not know had been killed by the family of Chahat Ali and that along with Mohd.Mustaq, Bhoole Ram and Chander he went to their house. This man has been cross-examined exclusively on this issue however nothing material has been elicited. Further this witness has no connection whatsoever with Mohd.Rafiq and thus cannot be termed as an interested witness.

10. Bhoole Ram PW-14 also stated that Chander and Ashfaq Ali came to his house and told that Shehnaaz wife of Riazuddin had been murdered and he along with others went to the house of Rafiq and informed him about the death of Shehnaaz when Rafiq told him that Shehnaaz had been taken away by Riazuddin @Rajesh at about 12.30 noon on the same date.

11. As regards the recovery of dead body of the deceased along with the chain, bangles and toe rings is concerned the version of Mohd.Rafiq is corroborated by PW-19 Mansa Ram, PW-2 Anssar Ahmed, PW-3 Mohd.Sabbir, PW-13 Ramphal s/o Niyadar Singh, PW-21 Inspector Rajbir Singh, PW-17 Retd.HC Kali Ram and PW-22 Mr.Aashutosh Kumar.

Similarly, even with regard to the recovery of the head of the deceased, the version of Mohd.Rafiq is corroborated by PW-10 Jaipal Singh, PW-21 Inspector Rajbir Singh and PW-11 Mohd.Hanif.

12. Except stating that there are material contradictions and improvements in the version of the witnesses no such contradiction or improvement has been pointed out by the learned counsel. The recovery of the head along with clothes of the deceased which cloth fabric tallied with bush-shirt of the brother of the deceased has been proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution bringing home the guilt of Riazuddin. Shri Aashutosh Kumar PW-22 the Executive Magistrate who conducted the inquest proceedings duly proved the recovery of the torso on his arrival when the earth was dug and the sack was pulled out and the body was identified by Mohd.Rafiq.

13. The Supreme Court in the decision reported as 2000 (1) SCC 471 State of Maharashtra vs. Suresh held: -

"26. We too countenance three possibilities when an accused points out the place where a dead body or an incriminating material was concealed without stating that it was conceded by himself. One is that he himself would have concealed it. Second is that he would have seen somebody else concealing it. And the third is that he would have been told by another person that it was concealed there. But if the accused declines to tell the criminal court that his knowledge about the concealment was on account of one of the last two possibilities the criminal court can presume that it was concealed by the accused himself. This is because accused is the only person who can offer the explanation as to how else he came to know of such concealment and if he chooses to refrain from telling the court as to how else he came to know of it, the presumption is a well justified course to be adopted by the criminal court that the concealment was made by

himself. Such an interpretation is not inconsistent with the principle embodied in Section 27 of the Evidence Act."

14. As regards the tampering in the disclosure statement of Riazuddin it would be relevant to note that Jaipal Singh and Hanif have signed in English however, besides their signatures their names have been written in Hindi by the I.O. which fact has been confronted to him.

15. From the evidence as noted above, the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that after Riazuddin took his wife to the matrimonial home, he committed her murder by slitting the throat and dug the body partly at one place and rest at other place.

16. We find no merit in the appeal. The same is dismissed. The bail bond and the surety bond are cancelled. Riazuddin @Rajesh would surrender to custody. Copy of this order be sent to Superintendent Central Jail Tihar for updation of the Jail record.

17. TCR be returned.

(MUKTA GUPTA) JUDGE

(PRADEEP NANDRAJOG) JUDGE JANUARY 19, 2016 'ga/vn'