The Single Bench of the Delhi High Court in the case of State vs Shiv Kumar & Anr. consisting of Justice Mukta Gupta reiterated that in a case of circumstantial evidence, the chain of circumstances should be complete and point towards the guilt of the accused.
Facts
Praveen Bano (PW-2), wife of Yakoob lodged a missing complaint regarding her husband on 20th March 2012 which was recorded vide DD No.48. Based on her complaint dated 22nd March 2012, the above noted FIR was registered. In the meantime, DD No.20A was recorded on 23rd March 2012 that a dead body of a male had been recovered, which was identified as Yakoob by his elder brother and his father-in-law. The investigation started and body was sent to post-mortem. Along with the application for conducting the post-mortem, it was noted that the body was identified and recovered at the instance of accused Shiv Kumar. In the FIR lodged by the wife-Praveen Bano, she suspected Kanhaiya, his brother- Rakesh and Shiv Kumar for kidnapping her husband who was addicted to drinking and thus prayed that he be traced. The case of the prosecution was based on the suspicion expressed by the wife of the deceased, recovery of the wooden stick pursuant to the arrest of Rakesh and the statement of Akbar, the witness of last seen.
Observations of the Court
The Bench observed that the statement of Akbar, even as per the investigating agency and himself, was not recorded immediately but after a delay of two and a half months in May 2012.
Regarding the recovery of the wooden stick, it was stated that there was no opinion of the post-mortem doctor that the 21 injuries caused to the deceased were by the said stick and hence, the recovery of the said stick at the instance of Rakesh was meaningless and not connected with the offence. Further, the wooden stick was recovered after a period of seven months on 16th October, 2012.
Reliance was placed on Sharad Birdhichand Sarda vs. State of Maharashtra to reiterate that in a case of circumstantial evidence, the chain of circumstances should be complete and each of the circumstance should point towards the guilt of the accused and in case, there is a break in the chain, the benefit of that is to be given to the accused.
Judgment
Neither the recovery of the weapon of offence from Rakesh was connected to the offence and the recovery of the dead body of Yakoob at the instance of Shiv Kumar was also not established from the prosecution evidence as the DD Entry which informed of the recovery of dead body and the evidence at the spot did not show that it was at the instance of Shiv Kumar that the dead body was recovered. The only evidence was Akbar’s statement, which can also not be relied upon since the statement was recorded after the period of two and a half months after the incident and from his cross-examination, it was clear that he was not aware of any other detail.
The Bench did not find any infirmity in the impugned judgment and the appeal was accordingly dismissed.
Case: State vs Shiv Kumar & Anr.
Citation: CRL.A. 418/2019
Bench: Justice Mukta Gupta
Decided on: 20th May 2022
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