Guna Mahto vs The State Of Jharkhand

1 REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.108 OF 2012

GUNA MAHTO ...APPELLANT

VERSUS

STATE OF JHARKHAND ...RESPONDENT

JUDGMENT

SANJAY KAROL, J.

1. The present criminal appeal is filed by appellant Guna Mahto,

found guilty of murdering his wife Smt. Deomatiya Devi under

Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 by the Ld. Trial

Court, Daltonganj in Sessions Trial Case No. 50 of 1989 titled as

State vs. Guna Mahto vide judgement dated 10.05.2001. The Ld.

Trial Court sentenced the appellant to a term of life Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by imprisonment under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and Narendra Prasad Date: 2023.03.17 16:15:18 IST Reason:

two years rigorous imprisonment in relation to the offence

punishable under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code. 2

2. On appeal, in the impugned judgment delivered by the High

Court of Jharkhand in Criminal Appeal No. 214 of 2001 dated

23.07.2004 titled as Guna Mahto v. State of Jharkhand and

findings in respect to the conviction and sentencing arrived at by

the Ld. Trial Court were affirmed, despite observing that the

Investigation Officer was not examined by the prosecution. Be

that as it may, the High Court solely relied upon the ocular

evidence of Banaudhi Mahto (PW-2), Samodhi Yadav (PW-9) and

Nandish Yadav (PW-10).

3. Hence the present appeal filed by the appellant Guna Mahto.

4. It is the case of the prosecution that the accused had committed

the murder of his wife and thereafter dumped her dead body in

the well of the village with an intent to cause disappearance of

the evidence related to the crime. Later, the accused approached

the Police with unclean hands by fabricating a false story,

wherein he reported his wife to be ‘missing’.

5. On 13.8.1988, the dead body of the deceased was found in the

well of the village pursuant to which the matter was brought to

the notice of the police and P.S. Case No. 35/1988 (Ex.P-3) 3 registered at Manika Police Station, Jharkhand. Accordingly, the

investigation was conducted and challan presented before the

Court for Trial. The prosecution examined ten witnesses out of

whom, testimonies of Murari Ram (PW-1), Mithu Pd. Sahu (PW-

4), Musafir Yadav (PW-5), Munni Mistry (PW-6), Chitranjan

Pandey (PW-8) and Sukhru Mahto (PW-7) are merely formal in

nature. We find their testimonies, when considered

independently or even collectively, not to point anything towards

the guilt of the accused.

6. Before we deal with the merits of the case, we deem it

appropriate, at this stage, to state the facts that are not in

dispute: (a) the identity of the deceased, (b) the body of the

deceased recovered from the well of the village, (c) the Post

Mortem Report prepared by Dr. Narendra Kumar Misar (PW-3)

stating the cause of the death being haemorrhage and shock

with injuries on the neck of the deceased.

7. It is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that in a case

revolving around circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must

prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt and the

circumstances relied upon must point out only towards one 4 hypothesis, that is, the guilt of the accused alone and none else.

On various occasions, this Court has stated essential conditions

that must be fulfilled before conviction of an accused can take

place based on circumstantial evidence. In the landmark case of

Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Mahrashtra, (1984) 4

SCC 116 it has been held as under:

“153. A close analysis of this decision would show that the following conditions must be fulfilled before a case against an accused can be said to be fully established:

(1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established.

It may be noted here that this Court indicated that the circumstances concerned “must or should” and not “may be” established. There is not only a grammatical but a legal distinction between “may be proved” and “must be or should be proved” as was held by this Court in Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade v. State of Maharashtra [(1973) 2 SCC 793 : 1973 SCC (Cri) 1033 : 1973 Crl LJ 1783] where the observations were made: [SCC para 19, p. 807: SCC (Cri) p. 1047] “Certainly, it is a primary principle that the accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a court can convict and the mental distance between ‘may be’ and ‘must be’ is long and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions.” (2) the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say, they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty, (3) the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency, (4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved, and (5) there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.” 5

8. In the instant case, as we have noted earlier, the Investigation

Officer was not examined. We find that there is no evidence,

ocular or documentary, relating to the factum of the accused

having caused the disappearance of evidence by giving

information to the police in order to prevent himself from being

prosecuted in relation to the murder of his own wife.

9. When we examine the testimony of Banaudhi Mahto (PW-2),

father of the deceased, we notice him not to have stated anything

against the accused in relation to the crime. He states that two

days prior to the recovery of the dead body, father of the accused

had informed him that the deceased had eloped with someone.

But with whom? He does not mention. He admits that the

deceased and the accused were living together and when he

discovered that his daughter had not returned home, he lodged

the report with the Police.

10.Samodhi Yadav (PW-9), uncle of the deceased, residing in village

Maran, only states that Ram Brijesh Yadav (co-villager) informed

him that his daughter-in-law (the deceased) had eloped with

someone residing in village i.e. Maran. Since he doubted such

statement, he went to village Janho, the place of the matrimonial

house of the deceased and was informed that since previous 6 evening, none had seen the deceased. The body of the deceased

was found only on the date of recovery from the well of the

village. He expressed his doubt, “…that accused had killed his

wife and had thereafter thrown her into the well”. This being the

only statement that he made against the accused. But what is

his source of such information, he does not disclose. In any

event such a deposition is only in the nature of hearsay and no

more, which is also uncorroborated. However, significantly, he

admits that the accused had already reported the matter to the

Police and that no case of ill-treatment of the deceased was ever

registered against the appellant.

11.Perusal of the testimony given by Nandish Yadav (PW-10), son of

the maternal brother of PW-2, in our considered view, is also of

no consequence in advancing or establishing the case of the

prosecution. He only states that, “we suspected” the role of the

accused “for he used to beat her often”. Elaborating further, he

states that such fact was disclosed to him by the villagers. We

find that this statement, apart from being in the nature of

hearsay, is vague and unspecific with regard to time, place and

manner of alleged cruelty. It is on such counts that he suspected

the accused to have murdered the deceased. Significantly, in the 7 cross-examination part of his testimony, we notice all these facts

to have been deposed for the first time in the Court and as we

have noticed in the testimony of PW-9 that no complaint of ill-

treatment was ever reported to anyone. Hence, therefore, the

case of the prosecution stands unproven.

12.The Trial Court in its judgment, while convicting the accused,

heavily relied upon the statement of PW-9 and the purported

statement of the Investigating Officer which is termed as UD

Exhibit marked as Exhibit 3/1. The relevant findings in the

judgment is extracted as under :

“The deceased’s death as the post mortem report discloses was not due to drowning. From the evidence of P.W.9 and I.O. it appears that while the deceased was found missing then on the next day the villagers tried to search her dead body in the said well by means of Jhagar but it was not found and on the next day the dead body was found in the same well. So, these facts indicate that the deceased did not commit suicide rather she was murdered and her dead body was thrown in the well and the fardbeyan of the accused regarding the death of the deceased is due to suicide does not appear to be probable.”

13.Similarly, the High Court, based its findings primarily on the

UD, in arriving at the factum of guilt of the accused. The Court

proceeded to add that:

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“The medical evidence suggests that the death took place 48 to 96 hours prior to post mortem. Autopsy on the body of the deceased was done on 14th August, 1988 at about 3 P.M. as per medical evidence, if calculation is made, the deceased died sometime between 12th August, 1988 (about 3 P.M.) and 10th August, 1988 (about 3 P.M.) that is why the I.O. suspected that the deceased was murdered at least two days before the post mortem. At least one day prior to the date of recovery of body, she was murdered and her body was thrown in the well.”

14. It is in this backdrop, that non-examination of the Investigating

Officer attains significance. It is not that the Investigating Officer

was not available or that the factum and manner of investigation

was deposed by his colleague who was also associated with the

same. Non-examination of the Investigation Officer has, in the

attending circumstances rendered the prosecution case to be

doubtful if not false. The offence under Section 201 IPC could

not have been proven without his examination.

15.The Courts below presumptively, proceeded with the acquired

assumption of the guilt of the accused for the reason that he was

lastly seen with the deceased, and lodged a false report,

forgetting that as per the version of the father of the deceased,

father of the accused had himself apprised him of his missing

daughter, at least two days prior to the incident. Doubt and

suspicion cannot form basis of guilt of the accused. The 9 circumstances linking the accused to the crime are not proven at

all, much less beyond reasonable doubt.

16.We may reiterate that, suspicion howsoever grave it may be,

remains only a doubtful pigment in the story canvassed by the

prosecution for establishing its case beyond any reasonable

doubt. [Venkatesh v. State of Karnataka, 2022 SCC OnLine

SC 765; Shatrughna Baban Meshram v. State of

Maharashtra, (2021) 1 SCC 596; Pappu v. State of Uttar

Pradesh, (2022) 10 SCC 321]. Save and except for the above,

there is no evidence: ocular, circumstantial or otherwise, which

could establish the guilt of the accused. There is no discovery of

any fact linking the accused to the crime sought to be proved,

much less, established by the prosecution beyond reasonable

doubt.

17.It is our bounden duty to ensure that miscarriage of justice is

avoided at all costs and the benefit of doubt, if any, given to the

accused. [Hanumant Govind Nargundkar v. State of M.P.

(1952) 2 SCC 71].

10

18.In normal course of proceedings, this Court does not interfere

with the concurrent finding of facts reached by both the courts

below. It is only in exceptional cases where we find the

concurrent findings to be absurd, leading to travesty of justice, it

is our duty to rectify miscarriage of justice. [Ramaphupala

Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (1970) 3 SCC 474, Balak

Ram v. State of U.P., (1975) 3 SCC 219, Bhoginbhai Hirjibhai

V. State of Gujarat, (1983) 3 SCC 217].

19.Hence, in our considered view, the courts below have seriously

erred in passing the order of conviction based on incorrect and

incomplete appreciation of evidence, causing serious prejudice to

the accused, also resulting into travesty of justice.

20.In view of aforesaid, we find that the order of conviction and

sentence passed by 5th Additional Sessions Judge, Palamau,

Daltonganj in Sessions Trial Case No.50 of 1989 dated

10.05.2001 as affirmed by the High Court of Jharkhand at

Ranchi in Criminal Appeal No.214 of 2001 dated 23.7.2004

titled as Guna Mahto v. State of Jharkhand needs to be

interfered with.

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21.We set-aside the orders passed by both the courts below. Since

the appellant is already on bail, his bail bond shall stand

discharged.

22.Appeal stands allowed.

………………J. (B.R. Gavai)

……………..…J. (Sanjay Karol)

Dated: 16th March, 2023 Place: New Delhi