Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Nand Kishore vs State Of Rajasthan on 23 May, 2014
\202] 1
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 544 OF 2012
NAND KISHORE . . . APPELLANT (s)
Versus
STATE OF RAJASTHAN . . . RESPONDENT (s)
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 545 OF 2012
JAI PRAKASH . . . APPELLANT (s)
Versus
STATE OF RAJASTHAN . . . RESPONDENT (s)
ORDER
In these appeals, Mr. Rajesh Sharma, advocate was appointed as Amicus Curiae. However, when the matter was called for final hearing on 21.5.2014, he was not present. In these circumstances, we appointed Ms. Nupur Choudhary, advocate to appear in both matters as Amicus Curiae. She has, accordingly, argued the matter on behalf of both the appellants Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by and assisted the Court.
Pardeep KumarDate: 2014.05.29 16:51:39 IST Reason: 2
2. The case of the prosecution is stated by the High Court in para 2 of the impugned judgment. The factual matrix incorporating the version of the prosecution is correctly recorded therein. Therefore, for the sake of convenience, we reproduce para 2 of the judgment to take note of the facts which led to the murder of one Kamal Singh for which FIR was lodged at Police Station Vaishali. Para 2 of the impugned judgment reads as under:
Briefly stated the facts of the case are that on 4.12.2000 a written report (Ex.P6) was lodged by Durgpal Singh (PW2) father of deceased Kamal Singh at police station Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, wherein it was alleged that he had gone to Delhi for his treatment. He came-back on 20.10.2000 to his village Rajpur then his wife Smt. Jamna asked him whether Lalla Kamal Singh their son had reached at Delhi or not. At this, he told her that he did not reach. On asking, she told that on 6.10.2000 one Jai Prakash of their village had taken Kamal Singh with him to Jaipur stating that his wife had burnt. Kamal Singh took a sum of Rs. 5000/- from the house and Rs. 3500/- from his nephew Rustam Singh to give it to Jai Prakash for treatment of his life, but he did not return so far from Jaipur. After one week of Dussehra, when Jai Prakash returned to Village Rajpur, then he was asked about Kamal Singh. Then Jai Prakash told that he seated Kamal Singh in the bus from Jaipur to Delhi. Thereafter, he went to the house of Jai Prakash, but it was locked up and no one was there.
Thereafter, PW2 went to Jaipur to search Kamal Singh and on second day, he reached Hasanpura at Jaipur and enquired from one Prem Singh, who told him that Kamal Singh had attended the funeral of Jai Prakash’s wife and 3 on the said night Kamal Singh, Jai Prakash, Nand Kishore, Lakhan Singh and other persons slept Hatwara. Next day’s morning, Kamal Singh, Jai Prakash, Nand Kishore and Sheodhan had gone to the room of Jai Parkash. Thereafter he had not seen Kamal Singh. The description of Kamal Singh was given in the report along with other facts. On the basis of above information, FIR No. 56/2000 (Ex.P7) was registered under Sections 302/201/34 IPC and investigation commenced.
3. Upon filing of the aforesaid FIR, investigation commenced. The accused persons were arrested. On the basis of disclosure statement of accused Sheodan Singh about dead body, the skeleton of deceased Kamal Singh was found and bones, ribs, skin, clothes and other articles of the deceased were recovered. Similarly, accused Nand Kishore also suffered disclosure statement on the basis of which, the watch of the deceased Kamal Singh was recovered from the house of another accused Jai Prakash. Likewise, on the basis of disclosure statement of accused Jai Prakash, a baniyan (undergarment) of the deceased was recovered. After the completion of the investigation, challan was filed. The trial court framed charge against the accused under Sections 302/34, 201 IPC. On the conclusion of trial, the learned Additional Sessions Judge (fast 4 Track) No. 2, Jaipur City, Jaipur vide common judgment dated 20.10.2003 held accused Sheodan Singh, Nand Kishore and Jai Prakash guilty of committing murder and also committing offence under Section 201 IPC. Substantive sentences were awarded to the appellants and accused Jai Prakash.
4. Accused filed appeals against their conviction before the High Court. The High vide common judgment dated 4.12.2009 has dismissed their appeals. Hence, these appeals by special leave. It is pertinent to mention here that the conviction of three accused namely; Sheodan Singh, Nand Kishore and Jai Prakash was affirmed by the High Court, whereas only two accused i.e. Nand Kishore and Jai Prakash have filed the appeals.
5. Since the body of the deceased was found after a lapse of few days, it had almost decayed. The first question which was addressed by the High Court was as to whether it was the case of natural death or it was a homicidal death. After examining the evidence in detail, the High Court has concluded that the learned Additional Sessions Judge rightly came to 5 the conclusion that it was a case of homicidal death. For this purpose, not only the statement of Dr. B.M. Gupta (PW24) is taken into consideration, the DNA test was also acted upon. The other circumstances indicating that death of the deceased was not natural but was homicidal are mentioned by the High Court in the following manner:
The recovery of skeleton and other articles of deceased are also proved from prosecution evidence as discussed above. If death of deceased was natural or accidental then why the accused persons did not inform the parents of the deceased immediately particularly when they were known to each other and were belonging to nearby villages and why the skeleton and other articles of deceased were hidden by them. The trial court after considering all the evidence available on record has recorded a finding that death of Kamal Singh was homicidal. The reasoning given by the trial court in this regard appear to be reasonable and justified and we do not find any justified reason to interfere with the same.
Insofar as involvement of the appellants is concerned, the first circumstance which had been taken into consideration was the evidence of ’last seen’. Ms. Nupur Choudhary, learned Amicus Curiae has argued that the evidence of ’last seen’ 6 could not have been believed inasmuch as there is sufficient time lapse when the appellants were last seen in the company of deceased and the dead body alleged to have been found.
Had that fact been taken in isolation, there might have been some substance found in the aforesaid submission. However, when this fact is considered in conjunction with other circumstances particularly, recoveries which were made at the instance of the appellants, the theory of ’last seen’ becomes irrelevant.
6. As already pointed out above, there was recovery of skeleton i.e. bones, ribs, skin and other articles of the deceased at the instance of accused Sheodan Singh who was arrested on 4.11.2000. The finding of fact recorded both by the trial court as well as the High Court shows that accused Sheodan Singh had voluntarily furnished information to I.O. Mohd. Irshad (PW34) under Section 27 of the Evidence Act as 7 to where the dead body of the deceased Kamal Singh was lying. The same was reduced into writing vide memo Exhibit P60 by Mohd. Irshad (PW34). Thereafter as per recovery memo Exhibit P8, the underwear and two keys of the deceased were recovered along with skeleton i.e bones, ribs, skin of the deceased. Since the dead body had been ruined by animal or otherwise by lapse of time as there was some gap of time, therefore corpse could not be recovered. However, the blood samples of Durgpal Singh (PW22) and Jamna Devi (PW12) were taken and sent for DNA test along with bones and ribs of the deceased. As per DNA report Exhibit P69 dated 3.1.2003, the source of Exhibit D (bones) cannot be excluded from being the biological offspring of the source of Exhibits A and E (PW 12 and PW22) i.e parents of dead body.
7. The recovery at the instance of appellant Nand Kishore has also been believed. He was arrested on 7.11.2000 vide 8 arrest memo Exhibit P7 and he gave information under Section 27 of the Evidence Act vide Exhibit P66 about the watch of deceased and the same was reduced into writing by I.O. Mohd. Irshad (PW 34) and in pursuance thereof, the watch was recovered from the house of accused Jai Prakash which has been proved by Bhudev (PW6) and Rustam (PW7). Likewise accused Jai Prakash was arrested on 7.11.2000 and he also gave information about one baniyan (undergarment) which was recovered vide recovery memo Exhibit P2 and has been proved by Mohanlal (PW1) and Bhanupratap (PW5).
8. We find that the findings of fact recorded by the trial court and affirmed by the High Court do not suffer from any infirmity. These are pure findings of fact on the basis of guilt of the appellants and are conclusively proved beyond reasonable doubt. The appeals are accordingly dismissed. We place on record the valuable assistance given by Ms. Nupur Choudhary, 9 advocate at our request. She shall be given fee as per Supreme Court Rules.
......................................J. (Dr. B.S. CHAUHAN) ......................................J. NEW DELHI; (A.K. SIKRI) MAY 23, 2014.
10
ITEM NO.101 COURT NO.2 SECTION II
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). 544/2012
NAND KISHORE Appellants)
VERSUS
STATE OF RAJASTHAN Respondents(s)
[with appln. for bail)
WITH
Crl.A. No. 545/2012
[with appln. for bail)
Date : 23/05/2014 These appeals were called on for hearing today CORAM :
HON’BLE DR. JUSTICE B.S. CHAUHAN HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. SIKRI [VACATION BENCH] For appellant (s) Ms. Nupur Choudhary, Adv. (A.C.) For Respondent(s) Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav, Adv. For Ms. Ruchi Kohli, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Criminal Appeals are dismissed in terms of signed.
(PARDEEP KUMAR) (M. S. NEGI)
AR-cum-PS ASSISTANT REGISTRAR
[SIGNED ORDER IS PLACED ON THE FILE]