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16. After recording the statement of prosecution witnesses, the trial court recorded the statement of appellant under Section 313 Cr.P.C., who denied all the allegations. In reply to question no.4, appellant stated that his wife (deceased) died due to train accident. In reply to question no. 10, appellant stated that his wife Archana was mentally retarded and she used to sleep-walk and was provided medical treatment too, and this fact was known to her family members and it appears that in sleep she went away and met with train accident.

20. He placed reliance on the judgment of Apex Court in case of Satye Singh and another Vs. State of Uttarakhand reported in 2022 SCC Online SC 183. He further submitted that even if the explanation given by the appellant is found false, conviction cannot be recorded as the chain of circumstances is not complete and the same cannot be completed with the aid of Section 106 of Evidence Act. Learned counsel for the appellant vehemently argued that the trial court wrongly shifted the burden upon the appellant without considering that prosecution did not prove the presence of appellant at or near the place of occurrence on or about the time of the death of deceased. He further submitted that inquest report (Ext. Ka-7) clearly shows that an information in respect of train accident was given by one Pradeep Kumar, Porter Railway Station Sarai Bhoopat, Jaswant Nagar, Etawah that deceased died due to train accident and the inquest was also conducted near the railway track and when police arrived on the information then the body of the deceased was lying on the railway track. Learned counsel for the appellant further contended that testimony of autopsy surgeon Dr. Rakesh Yadav (PW-3) shows that the deceased died due to train accident. Further, the autopsy report does not speak of post-mortem injuries but of ante-mortem injuries only. Thus, it is not a case where the deceased was killed elsewhere and dumped on the railway track. Learned counsel for the appellant also submitted that the FIR of the present case was lodged after more than three weeks and there is no explanation given by the prosecution for this delay, which suggests that the informant (PW-1) and other family members of the deceased were satisfied that the deceased died due to train accident.

Trial court findings

22. The Trial Court found that there was no medical evidence on record to show that the deceased, the wife of appellant, was mentally retarded or that she used to sleep-walk. Consequently, it disbelieved the defence version that the deceased died due to train accident. It observed that the injuries sustained by the deceased appears to be not a result of train accident but appears to be a case where, after committing the murder of deceased, her body was put on the railway track. Trial court observed that as the appellant and the deceased were husband and wife, it will be presumed that till 11 PM in night they were together and if the deceased walked out during sleep, then the appellant could have made an effort to stop her, or to have searched for her, when she was not found. Hence, Section 106 of Evidence Act was applicable. Consequently, by shifting the burden upon the appellant to explain as to how his wife came to be lying on the railway track, which was about 15 kilometres away from his home, the trial court convicted the appellant by taking into account his conduct.

27. What is important in the case at hand is that according to PW 3, the autopsy surgeon, the injuries found were ante-mortem. PW-3 does not at all state that the injuries were post-mortem. Rather, PW-3 stated that the injuries sustained by the deceased could be result of a train accident. In fact, testimony of autopsy surgeon (PW 3) clearly shows that death of deceased was a result of a train accident. Importantly, prosecution led no evidence to prove that the deceased died a homicidal death in her matrimonial home. In that scenario, the trial court's observations that deceased was kept on the railway track have no support from medical evidence or other evidence. These observations are therefore, purely conjectural. Notably, prosecution produced no evidence to prove the presence of appellant near the railway track on or about the time of accident. Further, there was no evidence that the appellant was seen by any one leaving the house with the deceased (dead or alive) in the night. Most importantly, the prosecution led no evidence to prove a case of dowry death therefore, the benefit of presumption that might otherwise have been available to the prosecution by virtue of section 113-B of the Evidence Act was not available here. Hence, the burden squarely fell upon the prosecution to prove the charge of murder either by direct evidence or by circumstantial evidence. Admittedly, there is no direct evidence and the golden rule of circumstantial evidence is that there must be a chain of circumstances so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused; and such chain of circumstances must be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and must exclude every possible hypothesis except the one sought to be proved by the prosecution. In the instant case, the proven circumstances are as follows: (i) the deceased was married to the appellant; (ii) in the night before the incident she was with her husband (appellant); (iii) that in the morning at 9.42 hours, she was reported to be a victim of train accident several kilometres away from her matrimonial home; and (iv) that autopsy suggested that she died in a train accident as being run over by the train. These circumstances do not form a chain so complete that they exclude all hypotheses consistent with the innocence of the appellant. The alternative hypotheses, inter alia, are: (i) the deceased might have left her matrimonial home in the night while others were sleeping probably to end her life, or (ii) she might have some ailment, as is the version of the prosecution, that she used to have severe stomach ache and be restless in the night, and, therefore might have thought it appropriate to end her life and, because of that, might have left the house in the darkness of night or wee hours of the morning when no body could notice her leaving the house. Notably, the autopsy report (Ext. Ka-2) and the statement of the autopsy surgeon (PW-3) and inquest report (Ext. Ka-7) clearly proves that deceased died on the railway track due to train accident. Thus, the probability of her death being accidental or suicidal are much higher than it being homicidal. No doubt, had the necessary ingredients of the applicability of the presumptive clauses of section 113-B or 113-A of the Evidence Act been proved, things might have been different. But, here, for lack of evidence in that regard, the trial court has acquitted the appellant of the charge under section 304-B and 498-A IPC. Even demand of dowry could not be proved. Thus, there was no scope for the trial court to act on assumptions and presumptions.