Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

“24. From the foregoing cases, it will be seen that in poison murder cases, the accused was not acquitted solely on the failure of the prosecution to establish one or the other requirement which this Court has laid down in Dharambir Singh case [ Criminal Appeal No. 98 of 1958, decided on 4- 11-1958 (SC)] . We do not also find any case where the accused was acquitted solely on the ground that the prosecution has failed to prove that the accused had the poison in his possession. The accused in all the said cases came to be acquitted by taking into consideration the totality of the circumstances including (1988) 3 SCC 513 insufficient motive, weakness in the chain of circumstantial evidence and likelihood of the deceased committing suicide.

26. The poison murder cases are not to be put outside the rule of circumstantial evidence. There may be obvious very many facts and circumstances out of which the court may be justified in drawing permissible inference that the accused was in  possession of the poison in question.

There may be very many facts and circumstances proved against the accused which may call for tacit assumption of the factum of possession of poison with the accused. The insistence on proof of possession of poison with the accused invariably in every case is neither desirable nor practicable. It would mean to introduce an extraneous ingredient to the offence of murder by poisoning. We cannot, therefore, accept the contention urged by the learned counsel for the appellant. The accused in a case of murder by poisoning cannot have a better chance of being exempted from sanctions than in other kinds of murders. Murder by poisoning is run like any other murder. In cases where dependence is wholly on circumstantial evidence, and direct evidence not being available, the court can legitimately draw from the circumstances an inference on any matter one way or the other.”

52. This court also explained the view taken in Anant Chintaman Lagu v. State of Bombay8. Again, in Shanmughan vs. State of Kerala9 the decision in AIR Bhupinder Singh v. State of Punjab (supra) came to be noticed. It was a case where death by poisoning was not in dispute. The only dispute was whether it was homicidal or suicidal. The court took note of the injuries which were found on the deceased. The victim 8 AIR 1960 SC 116 9 AIR 2012 SC 1142 had died of cyanide poison which is a highly corrosive poison. The evidence of PW7 in the said case was that the injuries could be due to forcible administration of the poison. The accused was specifically questioned about the injuries for which he had no answer. It was in these circumstances that the court after referring to paragraph-25 of Bhupinder Singh v. State of Punjab (supra) found that it was a case of poisoning. As far as the facts of the present case is concerned, we have noticed that there is absolutely no evidence relating to poison in relation to the deceased. Were it a case of forcible poisoning, by using a corrosive poison, there would been some marks. There are none. If it were forcible poisoning by using any kind of poison, there would be struggle and resistance from the victim. In this regard, PW1 is to be believed on 23.01.2011 at 9:30, he received a phone call from his daughter who, asked him to reach Haridwar, otherwise these people will kill her. Also, in the charge-sheet the prosecution proposed to prove its case based apart from the oral evidence the material recovered from the spot containing the vomiting of the deceased, which was cleaned by the accused. However, as noticed by the Learned Sessions Judge, the prosecution was unable to prove the presence of poison in the cleaning material referred to as the wiper.

53. We find ourselves unable to subscribe to paragraph-42 in the impugned judgment that the chain is complete from the time of the telephone call received by PW1 from his daughter till the recovery of the body in the Santro car. We are unable to appreciate the circumstances as unfolded on the morning of 23.1.2011 which allegedly started from the phone call of the daughter of PW1 as thereafter the only other circumstance, is the recovery of the body in the rear seat of the Santro car. The existence of any circumstances, as would fulfil the requirement, as laid down by this court in paragraph-59 in Anant Chintaman Lagu v. State of Bombay (supra), are not present. In paragraph-34 of the impugned judgment, the High Court refers to the FIR to notice that it is a case of poisoning. It further refers to the evidence of PW5-Medical Doctor that he admitted that on opening the body, the internal organs were congested, which could be due to poisoning. In this regard it may be noticed that PW5 has stated that he was not definite about the cause of death. He has further stated that on account of food poisoning the organs may be congested. Even more importantly, the doctor has opined that the death could have taken place due to Tuberculosis as in the case of Tuberculosis, the internal organs can be congested. The High Court has not referred to this part of the evidence, namely, that the congestion of internal organ could be due to Tuberculosis. Still further, there is a case for the appellants that food poisoning is to be distinguished from administering of poison and what the doctor has referred to is food poisoning. The High Court finds that merely because poison is not found, it cannot be said that deceased was not administered poison.