Dandu Jaggaraju vs State Of A.P

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 764 OF 2008

DANDU JAGGARAJU ..... APPELLANT

VERSUS

STATE OF A.P. ..... RESPONDENT

O R D E R

We have heard the learned counsel for the

parties.

Vide our separate reasoned order, we have allowed

the appeal, set aside the judgments of the courts below

and ordered the acquittal of the appellant herein.

We are told that the appellant is in custody. He

shall be released forth with if not wanted in

connection with any other case.

The reasoned order shall be separately placed on

record.

........................J [HARJIT SINGH BEDI]

........................J [GYAN SUDHA MISRA] NEW DELHI JULY 20, 2011.

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008

2

REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 764 OF 2008

DANDU JAGGARAJU ..... APPELLANT

VERSUS

STATE OF A.P. ..... RESPONDENT

O R D E R

1. At the very outset, Mr. M.K. Gupta, Advocate,

who claims to be a junior counsel with Mr. J.M. Khanna,

Advocate appeared before us and prayed that the matter

be adjourned for the day as Mr. J.M. Khanna was not yet

prepared with the matter and on the earlier date they

had missed the case in the list. We are told that Mr.

J.M. Khanna is sitting in his Chamber. We, accordingly

refuse to recall the order dated 14th July, 2011.

2. The deceased Varalakshmi who was a Kshatriya had

married P.W. 1, a member of the Scheduled Castes,

against the wishes of her family due to which her

family had become annoyed with her. The annoyance was,

particularly, felt by the appellant who was the

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 3

paternal uncle of the deceased. As per the prosecution

story the appellant telephoned the deceased on the 14th

of August, 2002, informing her that her grand mother

was seriously ill and wanted to see her and that he

would come to her village to pick her up later that

day. He also told her that as he would not be able to

locate her house somebody should be sent to the

telephone booth of P.W. 4 to guide him. P.W. 2

thereupon sent her son P.W. 3 to the telephone booth of

P.W. 4 and after a short while the appellant too

arrived at the telephone booth and was brought to the

house of the deceased. She introduced the appellant as

her uncle to P.Ws. 2 and 3. The deceased, believing

the information that her grand mother was sick, left

with the appellant on his white coloured scooter

leaving her young son with P.W. 2. P.W.1, the husband

of the deceased, returned home from work late that

evening and was told by P.Ws. 2 and 3 that his wife had

gone with the appellant and had not returned since

then. As the deceased did not return that evening or

even the next day and as the efforts of P.W. 1 to

search her out remained unsuccessful, he lodged a First

Information Report on the 16th of August to the effect

that his wife had left for the house of her relatives

but had not been seen thereafter. The dead body of

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 4

the deceased was, however, recovered later that day,

whereupon a second F.I.R. was recorded at the instance

of P.W. 1 in which he, for the first time, expressed

his suspicion that she had been taken away under a

pretext by the appellant and thereafter killed. The

appellant was, accordingly, arrested on the 7th

September, 2002 and some of the jewellery that the

deceased was said to be wearing at the time of her

disappearance was recovered from his pockets. The dead

body of the deceased was also subjected to a post

mortem examination and it was revealed that she had

died of asphyxia due to smothering as her chunni had

been thrust into her mouth.

3. On the completion of the investigation, the

appellant was brought to trial for offences punishable

under Section 302, 201 and 379 of the Indian Penal

Code. The trial court on a consideration of the

evidence of P.W. 1, the first informant and the husband

of the deceased, P.W. 2 the house owner in which the

deceased and P.W. 1 were living, P.W. 3 the son of P.W.

2 who stated that he had gone to the telephone booth of

P.W. 4 and had brought the appellant to their house on

the 14th of August, 2002 and P.W. 4 the telephone booth

owner who deposed to the fact that the appellant had

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 5

come to the booth on the day in question where P.W. 3

had been waiting for him and thereafter gone along with

him to the house of P.W. 2, P.W. 6 a press reporter and

a colleague of P.W. 1 who had last seen the deceased

and the appellant at the bus stand at Ravulapalem and

as supported by the medical evidence and the recoveries

of the ornaments from the appellant convicted him of

the offences charged and sentenced him accordingly.

The High Court has, in appeal, confirmed the judgment

of conviction and sentence and the matter is before us

after the grant of special leave.

4. Mr. Siddharth Dave, the learned Amicus for the

appellant, has submitted that there was absolutely no

evidence to connect the appellant to the crime and the

First Information Report recorded on the 18th

August, 2002 was no FIR in the eyes of law as the

first FIR recorded was that of a missing person on the

16th August, 2002 and in this report the first

informant(P.W. 1) had not expressed his suspicion about

the identify of the culprit. He has also pointed out

that except for the last seen evidence of P.Ws. 2, 3

and 6, there was no other evidence to connect the

appellant with the murder as the recoveries alleged to

have been made by the police on the 7th of September,

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 6

2002 could not be believed. It has, accordingly, been

submitted that the chain of circumstances envisaged in

a case resting on circumstantial evidence were clearly

missing.

5. Mr. D. Mahesh Babu, the learned counsel for the

State of Andhra Pradesh has, however, supported the

judgment of the trial court and has pointed out that

the last seen evidence and the recoveries by themselves

did constitute such a chain and as both the courts

below had found that the case had been proved, no case

for interference was made out.

6. We have heard the learned counsel for the

parties and gone through the evidence on record.

7. It has to be noticed that the marriage between

P.W. 1 and the deceased had been performed in the year

1996 and that it is the case of the prosecution that an

earlier attempt to hurt the deceased had been made and

a report to that effect had been lodged by the

complainant. There is, however, no documentary

evidence to that effect. We, therefore, find it

somewhat strange that the family of the deceased had

accepted the marriage for about six years more

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 7

particularly, as even a child had been born to the

couple. In this view of the matter, the motive is

clearly suspect. In a case relating to circumstantial

evidence, motive is often a very strong circumstance

which has to be proved by the prosecution and it is

this circumstance which often forms the fulcrum of the

prosecution story.

8. We also see that the last seen evidence of P.Ws.

2, 3 and 6 is equally uncertain. Significantly, the

statements of P.Ws.2 and 3 were recorded by the

Magistrate for the first time under Section 164 about

four months after the alleged incident and though both

witnesses had deposed that they would be able to

identify the appellant who was otherwise a stranger to

them, no effort had been made to hold a test

identification parade. Mr. Mahesh Babu, has, however,

placed reliance on the statement of P.W. 6 who is

stated to be a completely independent witness. Even

this witness had testified that he did not know the

appellant personally but he still claimed that he had

seen the appellant at the bus depot on the day in

question along with the deceased and that he was called

upon to identify him for the first time in Court when

his statement was recorded on the 4th of November, 2004

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 8

which was two and a half years after the murder.

9. The only other piece of evidence against the

appellant is the recovery of the ornaments allegedly

taken from the deceased. We find that the jewellery is

of the variety known as 'disco jewellery' and is

commonly available to all and sundry. It is also

difficult to believe that the appellant, who statedly

killed his niece on account of family honour, would

act so low as to take the jewellery which was little

more than trinkets from her dead body. We also find

it completely unacceptable that though the incident

happened on the 14th of August, 2002 the appellant had

continued to move around with the jewellery still in

his pocket till its recovery from him on the 7th of

September, 2002. We also see from the record that the

said jewellery had not been recovered under a

disclosure under Section 27 of the Evidence Act but was

taken on a search of his person. This circumstance,

therefore, does not even remotely support the

prosecution story in any manner.

9. For the reasons recorded above, we find that the

judgments of the courts below cannot be sustained. We,

accordingly, allow the appeal and order the appellant's

Crl.A. No. 764 of 2008 9

acquittal. We are told that he is in custody. He

shall be released forthwith if not wanted in any other

case.

10. The fee of the Amicus is fixed at `7,000/-.

........................J [HARJIT SINGH BEDI]

........................J [GYAN SUDHA MISRA] NEW DELHI JULY 20, 2011.