TMI Blog1968 (12) TMI 94X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ber 12, 1961. The Additional Sessions Judge, Santal Parganas acquitted the appellant of both the charges but, in appeal, the High Court found him guilty of the charge of murder and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. The appellant has come up to this Court by special leave. The case of the prosecution leading to the discovery of the murder and arrest of the appellant is as follows. When the Barauni-Sealdah passenger reached Madhupur station at about 3.52 p.m. on 12th October 1961 the dead body of a person was discovered in the lavatory of a first class compartment of that train. One Anil Kumar Roy who wanted to board the said compartment at Jasidih station (in between Jhajha and Madhupur) could not get the door opened and had to board another compartment. The dead body was found with the neck cut and besmeared with blood. Blood was coming out from the veins of the neck and there was plenty of it on the floor of the lavatory. The clothes of the deceased and his belongings like a comb, handkerchief were also blood-stained and there were finger marks in the lavatory. Photographs of the deceased were taken and later the body was identified as that of Jai Prakash Dubey, a student ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ij Bihari Pathak, Sub Inspector of Police (P.W. 39) seized the articles which the appellant had with him in the presence of two witnesses and prepared a seizure list. The articles seized from the accused included a shirt, a pair of trousers, a leather belt, a pair of shoes, 4 bloodstained copy books, two books, pages of one being blood-stained. He also prepared an injury report of the appellant and sent him to a doctor for examination. The officer in charge of the Railway Police Station Madhupur, Gorakh Prasad Singh (P.W. 511) proceeded with the investigation, took charge of various articles found in the compartment of the Barauni passenger, received the post- mortem report, examined witnesses and sent all the material exhibits to the Chemical Examiner for examination and report. The report of the Chemical Examiner showed that among the articles found with the appellant Nishi Kant Jha and sent up for examination the following were stained with human blood: (1) leather belt cutting (2) cuttings of underwear, trousers and shirt (3) pair of chappal (4) portion of a shoe (5) one big knife and (6) several books, papers and an exercise book. The report also showed that sample of blood fo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... got me down from the bullock cart and brought before you. I know their names after enquiring the same from them. At the end of the statement there was an endorsement reading: On my understanding my statement, I affix my signature. The signature appearing thereunder was admitted by the appellant to be his beating date 12th October 1961. From the said statement the following emerge: (1) The appellant had boarded a first class compartment in Barauni passenger at Jhajha already occupied by a person not known to him. (2) When the train reached Simultala one Lal Mohan Sharma, resident of Deoghar entered that compartment (3 ) When the train proceeded further and stopped at Jasidih station, the appellant wanted to get down but was prevented from doing so by Lal Mohan. (4) After the train moved out of Jasidih Lal Mohan caught hold of the first occupant of the compartment and took him into the lavatory and started beating him. (5) The appellant wanted to prevent this and in trying to catch hold of the assailant's hand he was injured by a knife. Thereafter he took no further steps to prevent the commission of the crime. (6) Lal Mohan Sharma threatened him with dea ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ing stained with blood. He did not admit that he had told anyone that while coming from the side of Gangamarni he had been assaulted by some herdsman and cut his finger with glass and said that his reply to the query was that he had an altercation with a herdsman on his asking about the way when the latter wanted to assault him with a sharp-edged knife and on his catching hold of it he had cut his hand. He denied having enquired of anybody about the way leading to Deoghar and he also denied that he was arrested while he was a mile ahead of village Titithapur following a bullock' cart. He admitted having held in his hand clothes which had been washed in the river and blood-stained 'books and copy books, pages of some of the books being blood- stained. He did not admit that he had with him a knife when he was arrested. He admitted having been taken to the house of the Mukhiya, Sudama Raut but his version was that when he reached there they all began to beat him and told him that he must make a statement as suggested by them. With regard to Ex. 6 his version was that it was not his statement but that he had been made to put his signature on a piece of' blank paper which wa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... c) He also had with him at that time a knife 'the length of the blade and the handle of which was about 9 . (d) According to the medical evidence the injuries. of the victim could have been caused by that knife ,which was in the possession of the, appellant .... One of the horizontal'. incised inJuries i.e. injury No. 6, was 5 x 2 x'3/4''. 6 Sup. CI/69--15 (e) The left hand of the respondent was noticed with a cut injury at the bank of the said river. The marks of other injuries on the body of the appellant were compatible with a scuffle with the victim in the compartment of the train. (f) The explanation of the appellant with regard to the possession of blood-stained clothes and articles and the injury on his body,was not acceptable. In the light of the above incriminating circumstances culled from the evidence, the acceptance of the statement of the appellant in Ex. 6 that he had travelled together with an unknown person, later identified as the victim Jai Prakash Dubey in the same compartment would be conclusive to prove the guilt of the appellant if his further statement in Ex. 6 about the part played by Lal Mohan Sharma be rejected. The appell ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ase that he made a statement as a result of a threat or assault, for in that case, all that was necessary was to get his signature. A point was sought to be made by counsel for the appellant ,that the footprints and finger prints in the lavatory of the first class compartment taken at Madhupur station were found to be different from those of the appellant and that this went to show that the appellant could not have been the murderer. The High Court turned down this contention on the ground that before the police took charge of the situation many people had entered the compartment of the train and the above difference therefore was not a factor on which any reliance could be placed. The High Court found that the appellant's version that he did not know the victim unacceptable. His version in Ex. 6 as to how he came to sustain his cut injury was entirely different from that given in his statement under s. 342. The High Court also could not accept his version that he had lost his way to his sister's village at Roshan and that he had suffered an injury in the way suggested by him in his statement under s. 342. But however grave the incriminating circumstances against the app ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t of it, he is at liberty to do so; and then the whole testimony is left to the jury for their consideration, precisely as in other cases where one part of the evidence is contradictory to another. Even without such contradiction it is not to be supposed that all the parts of a confession are entitled to equal credit. The jury may believe that part which charges the prisoner, and reject that which is in his favour, if they see sufficient grounds for so doing. If what he said in his own favour is not contradicted by evidence offered by the prosecutor, nor is improbable in itself, it will be naturally believed by the jury; but they are not bound to give weight to it on that account, being at liberty to judge of it, like other evidence, by all the circumstances of the case. In Roscoe's book on Criminal Evidence (16th Edition, page 52). the statement of law is much to the same effect. Roscoe also cites a decision in Rex v. Clewes(x) where the confession of the prisoner charged with murder 'that he was present at the murder but that it was committed by another person and that he took no part in it, was left to be considered by the jury with a direction that the jury might, i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Seoni Distillery by forging the tender Ex. P-3A and for commission of the offence of forgery of the ,tender and of another document Ex. P-24... The' Special Magistrate convicted both the appellants on all the three charges. The Sessions Judge quashed the conviction of both the appellants under the first Charge of Criminal conspiracy but maintained the convictions and sentences under s. 465 I.P.C. on the charges of forging Ex. P-3A and P-24. Both the appellants went up in revision to the High Court without any success. Examining the evidence in the appeal by special leave, this Court held that the peculiar features relied on by the courts below in Ex. P-3A should be eliminated from consideration and it was held that there were really no circumstances inconsistent with Ex. P- 3A being a genuine document. In respect of the charge regarding Ex. P-24 the trial Magistrate and the Sessions Judge used the evidence of experts to arrive at the finding that the letter Ex. P-24 was typed on article A which had not reached Nagpur till the end of December 1946 and therefore the letter was antedated. The High Court although of the view that the evidence of the experts was inadmissible procee ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... her under s. 201 I.P.C. With regard to this, the High Court held that the most-important piece of evidence in support thereof was the confession made by the appellant which though retracted was corroborated on this point by independent evidence so as to establish the charge. This Court held that there was no evidence to establish affirmatively that the death of the appellant's husband was caused by poisoning and that being so the charge under s. 201 I.P.C. also must fail. According to this Court, the High Court in reaching a contrary conclusion not only acted on suspicions and conjectures but on inadmissible evidence. ,With regard to the alleged confession of the appellant, it was held that the High Court not only was in error in treating the same as evidence in the case but was further in error in accepting a part of it after finding that the rest of it was false. In that case, the evidence showed that the body of the appellants husband was found in a trunk and discovered in a well and that the accused had taken part in the disposal of the body but there was no evidence to show the cause of his death or the manner and circumstances in which it came about. Referring to the deci ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... According to this statement, the' injury which the appellant received was caused by the appellant's attempt to catch hold of the hand of Lal Mohan Sharma to prevent the attack on the victim. This was contradicted by the statement of the accused himself under s. 342 Cr. P.C. to the effect that he had recceived the injury in a scuffle with a herdsman. The injury found on his body when he was examined by the doctor on 13th October 1961 negatives both these versions. Neither of these versions accounts for the profuse bleeding which led to his washing his clothes and having a bath in the river Patro, the amount of bleeding and the washing of the bloodstains being so considerable as to affact the attention of Ram Kishore Pandey, P.W. 17 and asking him about the cause thereof. The bleeding was nora simple one as his clothes all got stained with blood as also his books, his exercise book and his belt and shoes. More than that the knife which was discovered on his person was found to have been stained with blood according to the report of the Chemical Examiner. According to the postmortem report this knife could have been the cause of the injuries on the victim. In circumstances li ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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