Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Renganathan vs The State Of Tamil Nadu on 24 February, 2022
Author: Uday Umesh Lalit
Bench: Uday Umesh Lalit, S. Ravindra Bhat, Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.720 OF 2021
RENGANATHAN Appellant(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF TAMIL NADU Respondent(s)
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 770 OF 2021
(B. Bakkiyalakshmi vs. Alagammal and ors.)
JUDGMENT
Uday Umesh Lalit, J.
1. These appeals challenge the judgment and order dated 20.02.2018 passed by the Madurai Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Madras in Criminal Appeal(HP) No. 390 of 2017.
2. The case of the prosecution as set out by the High Court in the course of its judgment may be extracted here for facility:
“4.The deceased was residing in the house of the 1 st and 2nd accused and he parted company of his wife about 25 years before. The son had been employed elsewhere. The second accused is the wife of the first accused and the third accused is the brother Signature Not Verified of the deceased. The deceased Bose Raj had properties at Digitally signed by Indu Marwah Devaram village. He had executed a Will dated 22.03.2010 in favour of the first accused, who is not a relative to the deceased Date: 2022.02.25 18:29:37 IST Reason:
and the Will had been registered at the office of the Sub-Registrar at Devaram. According to the Will, the property would be enjoyed by the deceased till his life time and after his demise, the 2 property would go to the first accused.
5. According to the case of the prosecution, in order to immediately get title to the property, the accused 1 and 2 with the assistance of A3 and with the conspiracy and intention to kill the deceased, murdered the deceased. The second-accused pushed the deceased down on the floor, the first accused, using tremendous pressure through legs, pressed the private part of the deceased; second accused squeezed the part with hands and thus caused the death of the deceased. The deceased was admitted at Theni Medical College Hospital and he died on 30.07.2012 at about 4 O’clock in the early morning.
6. In order to erase the evidence and with the intention to escape from the clutches of law, the accused persons informed the Doctor that the death of the deceased was a natural death and thereafter, took the body of Muthulingapuram and made all arrangements to dispose of the dead body.
7. In the meantime, the wife of the deceased gave a complaint to Devaram Police Station and a case was registered under Section 174 Cr.P.C. and thereafter it was sent to the Executive Magistrate for enquiry. The Inspector of Police, after receiving the report, altered the offence from Section 174 Cr.P.C.
to Section 302 IPC and continued investigation. After getting the body, being subjected to postmortem and after conducting investigation, he laid the final report against accused persons under Section 302 and 201 IPC. The accused persons as usual have disputed their involvement in the occurrence.
8. The prosecution, in order to substantiate the offences against the accused, have examined 18 witnesses and marked 12 documents through cross, examination PW-13 Ex.D-1 has been marked.”
3. The facts on record disclose:
(a) The deceased-Bose Raj had parted company of his wife (PW-1) about 4 ½ years before the date of incident. Said Bose Raj was living in the house of A-1-Renganathan on the ground floor while A-1 and A-2 lived on the 3 first floor which was having an independent access. Bose Raj had executed a registered Will in favour of A-1 bequeathing two parcels of land admeasuring about 7 cents and 58 cents.
(b) More than two years later, the present incident is said to have occurred on 30.07.2012.
(c) PW-16 – Dr. Vekatesan, Assistant Professor, Government Medical College, Theni extended medical attention to Bose Raj. According to this witness, on his inquiry, the accompanying persons namely, Pavunraj and Amritharaj disclosed that Bose Raj was having diabetic condition and his kidneys were affected and that Bose Raj was taking treatment for his ailments.
The witness further observed that the heartbeats of Bose Raj were not normal and his condition was critical.
(d) Bose Raj expired around 4.30 A.M. whereafter the dead body was handed over to said Pavunraj and Amritharaj.
(e) After the death of Bose Raj, Crime No. 141 of 2012 under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal (‘the Code’ for short) was registered with Thevaram Police Station. Initially investigation was carried on by PW-17 – Sangareswaran who sent the body for post-mortem. 4
(f) The post-mortem was conducted by PW-13 - Dr. Juliana Jayanthi who found two external injuries on the body of the deceased:
“1. Bright red coloured contusion of size 4 cms x 4 cms seen over the dorsal aspect penies.
2. Swelling of external genitalia seen”
(g) In answer to certain queries raised by the Investigating Officer, PW-
13 had opined:-
“4. Question: Is there any chance to cause injury at the place were injury mentioned in the Postmortem Report has occurred, could have been caused if the deceased person fell down? (OR) If anyone by their hand or leg gives tremendous pressure is there any chance to cause such injury?
Answer: There is no chance to cause the injury mentioned in the Postmortem Report, if the person falls down. If the person automatically falls down, there would be injuries caused on the other parts of the body also.
There is chance to cause such injury by leg or hand or if anyone give tremendous pressure by hand.
5. Question: If such injury has been caused, is there any chance for death?
Answer: Yes, there is chance for death.”
(h) More than six months after the incident, statements under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, of PWs.2 to 4 namely Rajaram, Ganeshan and Ramamoorthy were recorded by the subsequent Investigating Officer namely PW-18 Elangovan.
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According to PW-18 Elangovan, after seeing the inquest report, he had altered the crime to be one under Section 302 IPC.
(i) After due investigation, three persons namely, Renganathan, Alagammal and Amirtharaj (A-1 to A-3 respectively) were tried for having committed murder of Bose Raj in the Court of Principal District & Sessions Judge, Theni in Sessions Case No.144 of 2013.
4. There being no direct evidence, the prosecution relied upon following circumstances in support of its case.
(1) A-1 was a beneficiary under the registered Will dated 22.03.2010. (2) As disclosed by PWs 2 to 4, Bose Raj was of the view that he had committed mistake in making a bequest in favour of A-1.
(3) In order to accelerate the succession in favour of A-1, the crime was committed.
(4) Out of two injuries on the body of the deceased, the first injury was fatal.
5. By its judgment and order dated 11.9.2017, the trial Court accepted the case of the prosecution. It convicted and sentenced all three accused to undergo life sentence for the offence under Section 302 IPC and three years under Section 511 of the IPC.
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6. The accused being aggrieved, filed Criminal Appeal No.(HP) 390 of 2017 in the High Court. By its judgment and order dated 20.02.2018, the High court accepted the appeal and acquitted A-2 and A-3 but affirmed the view taken by the trial court as regards the conviction and sentence of A-1.
7. The present appellant being aggrieved, has filed the instant appeal. Criminal Appeal No. 770 of 2021 has also been filed by the wife of Bose Raj (Original complainant) challenging the acquittal of A-2 and A-3.
8. We have heard Mr. T. Harish Kumar, learned advocate for A-1 in the appeal preferred against his conviction, Dr. Joseph Aristotle S, learned advocate for the State and Mr.Sheikh F. Kalia, learned Advocate for the complainant.
Mr. T. Harish Kumar, learned advocate and S. Aravindh, Advocate also represent the acquitted accused (A-2 & A-3 respectively)in the appeal preferred by the complainant.
9. Though, according to the medical opinion, it was the first injury which was responsible for the death, the opinion did not indicate, in any way, about the resultant effect of that injury or in what manner it had affected the basic bodily functions of Bose Raj.
10. At the initial stage of investigation nothing had come up on record to 7 entertain any suspicion against the accused. The statements of PWs 2 to 4 were recorded after six months of the incident which were relied upon by the subsequent Investigating Officer to convert the case to one under Section 302 IPC. There was nothing on record to indicate either directly or inferentially that the injury on the person of the deceased – Bose Raj was caused by any of the accused. The circumstances proved on record did not thus conclusively establish the guilt of the accused.
11. Even if there was a possibility that in the event of the death of the deceased the succession could have accelerated and thus there could be presence of motive on part of A-1, that by itself would not be sufficient.
12. Some of the decisions of this Court on the point may be noted at this stage:-
a) In Subimal Sarkar vs. Sachindra Nath Mandal and others 1, it was observed:-
“10. We are in agreement with the finding of the High Court. It is true that the prosecution has been able to establish motive but then that by itself is not sufficient to base a conviction. The other cir- cumstantial evidence that is established beyond reasonable doubt is the fact that the deceased died of strangulation. There is no mate- rial produced by the prosecution to show who actually committed this crime but there being no eyewitnesses to the incident the pros- ecution will have to establish all the links in the chain of circum- stances which would have to show that in all probability it is only the accused persons who could have committed this crime. This the prosecution has failed to establish. … …” 1 (2003) 2 SCC 566 8
b) In Ramesh Baburao Devaskar and others vs. State of Maharashtra2, this Court Stated:-
“26. Proof of motive by itself may not be a ground to hold the ac- cused guilty. Enmity, as is well known, is a double-edged weapon. Whereas existence of a motive on the part of an accused may be held to be the reason for committing crime, the same may also lead to false implication. Suspicion against the accused on the ba- sis of their motive to commit the crime cannot by itself lead to a judgment of conviction.”
c) In Sampath Kumar vs. Inspector of Police, Krishnagiri3, the discussion was:-
“29. In N.J. Suraj v. State4 the prosecution case was based en- tirely upon circumstantial evidence and a motive. Having dis- cussed the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution, this Court rejected the motive which was the only remaining cir- cumstance relied upon by the prosecution stating that the pres- ence of a motive was not enough for supporting a conviction, for it is well settled that the chain of circumstances should be such as to lead to an irresistible conclusion, that is incompatible with the innocence of the accused.
30. To the same effect is the decision of this Court in Santosh Kumar Singh v. State5 and Rukia Begum v. State of Karnataka6 where this Court held that motive alone in the absence of any other circumstantial evidence would not be sufficient to convict the appellant. Reference may also be made to the decision of this Court in Sunil Rai v. UT, Chandigarh7. This Court ex-
plained the legal position as follows: (Sunil Rai case7, SCC p. 266, paras 31-32) “31. … In any event, motive alone can hardly be a ground for conviction.
2 (2007) 13 SCC 501 3 (2012) 4 SCC 124 4 (2004) 11 SCC 346 5 (2010) 9 SCC 747 6 (2011)4 SCC 779 7 (2011) 12 SCC 258 9
32. On the materials on record, there may be some suspicion against the accused, but as is often said, suspicion, howsoever strong, cannot take the place of proof.”
13. In the circumstances, in our considered view, A-1 is entitled to benefit of doubt. Thus, we allow the appeal preferred by A-1 and set aside the view taken by the trial court as well as by the High Court.
14. We also dismiss the appeal preferred by complainant and affirm the acquittal recorded in favour of the accused Nos. 2 and 3 by the High Court.
15. A-1 be set at liberty forthwith, unless his custody is required in connection with any other crime.
……………………………………………J. [UDAY UMESH LALIT] ……………………………………………J. [S. RAVINDRA BHAT] ……………………………………………J. [PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA] New Delhi, February 24, 2022.
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ITEM NO.105 COURT NO.2 SECTION II-C
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Criminal Appeal No(s). 720/2021
RENGANATHAN Appellant(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF TAMIL NADU Respondent(s)
WITH
Crl.A. No. 770/2021 (II-C)
(IA No.69055/2019-EXEMPTION FROM FILING C/C OF THE IMPUGNED JUDGMENT) Date : 24-02-2022 These appeals were called on for hearing today. CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE UDAY UMESH LALIT HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S. RAVINDRA BHAT HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA For Parties: Mr. T. Harish Kumar, AOR Mr. Navneet Dugar, Advocate, Mr. Subham Kothari, Advocate Mr. Suvendu Suvasis Dash, AOR Mr. Sheikh F. Kalia, Adv Dr. Joseph Aristotle S., AOR Ms. Preeti Singh, Adv.
Ms. Nupur Sharma, Adv.
Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Mahara, Adv.
Mr. S. Aravindh Adv Mr. Scv Vimal Pani Adv Mrs L Maheswari Adv.
Mr. A. Lakshminarayanan, AOR UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Criminal Appeal No.720 Of 2021 is allowed and Criminal Appeal No. 770/2021 is dismissed in terms of the signed judgment Pending applications, if any, shall stand disposed of.
(INDU MARWAH) (VIRENDER SINGH)
COURT MASTER (SH) BRANCH OFFICER
(SIGNED JUDGMENT IS PLACED ON THE FILE)