Chattisgarh High Court
Ramkumar Sahu vs State Of Chhattisgarh on 10 January, 2025
Author: Sanjay K. Agrawal
Bench: Sanjay K. Agrawal
1
Digitally signed
by BHOLA
NATH KHATAI
Date:
2025.01.16
10:49:07 +0530
2025:CGHC:1716-DB
NAFR
HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR
CRA No. 637 of 2019
1. Ramkumar Sahu, aged about 51 years, S/o Santan Sahu,
R/o Village Karari, Police Station Masturi, District -
Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
2. Puni Bai, aged about 50 years, W/o Ramkumar Sahu, R/o
Village Karari, Police Station Masturi, District - Bilaspur,
Chhattisgarh
3. Jagdish Sahu, aged about 25 years, S/o Ramkumar Sahu,
R/o Village Karari, Police Station Masturi, District -
Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
... Appellants
versus
State of Chhattisgarh, Through: The Police Station Masturi
District- Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
... Respondent
For Appellants : Ms. Smita Jha, Advocate
For Respondent/State : Mr. Rahul Tamaskar, Govt.
Advocate
(Division Bench)
Hon'ble Shri Justice Sanjay K. Agrawal
Hon'ble Shri Justice Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal
2
Judgment on Board
(10.01.2025)
Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.
1. These three appellants herein, who are the father-in-law,
mother-in-law and husband of the deceased, have jointly
preferred this criminal appeal under Section 374(2) of
Cr.P.C. calling in question the legality, validity and
correctness of the judgment of conviction and order of
sentence dated 21.02.2019, passed by 9th Additional
Sessions Judge, Bilaspur (C.G.) in Sessions Trial
No.98/2017, whereby the appellants have been convicted for
offence punishable under Sections 302/34 and 201/34 of
IPC and sentenced in the following manner :-
Conviction Sentence
U/s 302/34 of IPC Life Imprisonment and fine of
Rs.10,000, in default of fine, 6
months additional R.I.
U/s 201/34 of IPC R.I. for 3 years and fine of
Rs.3,000, in default of fine, 2
months additional R.I.
2. The case of the prosecution, in short, is that on 20.05.2017
at about 07:30 a.m., in village Karari, Police Station Masturi,
District – Bilaspur, all the three appellants, in furtherance
of their common intention, throttled Padmini Sahu (now
deceased) i.e. the wife of appellant No.3 and daughter-in-law
of appellant Nos. 1 & 2 to death and in order to screen
themselves from the offence, burned the dead body in the
toilet room, thereby they committed the aforesaid offence.
The matter was reported to the Police by Appellant No.1
3
himself i.e. the father-in-law of the deceased, based on
which, Morgue Intimation was recorded vide Ex.P-28 and
FIR was registered vide Ex.P-20. Inquest was conducted
vide Ex.P-4 and the dead body was sent for postmortem
examination which was conducted by Dr. Parul Jogi (PW-8),
who proved the post-mortem report Ex.P-11, according to
which, the cause of death was throttling, mode of death was
asphyxia and nature of death was homicidal. After
completion of investigation, the appellants were charge-
sheeted for the aforesaid offence before the jurisdictional
criminal court and the case was ultimately committed to the
Sessions Court for trial and its disposal in accordance with
law.
3. During the course of trial, in order to bring home the offence,
the prosecution has examined as many as 18 witnesses
and exhibited 28 documents. The statements of
accused/appellants were recorded under Section 313 of the
CrPC in which they denied the circumstances appearing
against them in the evidence brought on record by the
prosecution, pleaded innocence and false implication. The
accused-appellants in support of their defence have
examined one witness and exhibited 6 documents.
4. Learned trial Court, after appreciation of the oral and
documentary evidence available on record, convicted and
sentenced the appellants as mentioned in the opening para
of this judgment against which the present appeal has been
preferred by the appellants questioning the legality, validity
and correctness of the impugned judgment.
5. Ms. Smita Jha, learned counsel for the appellants, would
submit that the trial Court is absolutely unjustified in
convicting the three appellants for offence punishable under
4
Sections 302/34 of IPC as the theory of last seen together
has not been established. She submits that the the trial
Court by misreading the statements of Lagan Bai (PW-15),
Laxman Prasad Yadav (PW-16) and Smt. Savitri Yadav (PW-
18) proceeded to hold that the appellants were present on
the date and time of offence in the house and thereby
wrongly applied Section 106 of the Evidence Act to convict
the appellants for the aforesaid offence. She submits that
the prosecution has failed to prove the offence beyond
reasonable doubt and the appellants are liable to be
acquitted of the said charges on the basis of benefit of doubt.
6. Mr. Rahul Tamaskar, learned State counsel, supports the
impugned judgment and submits that the prosecution has
been able to bring home the offence beyond reasonable
doubt and therefore, the conviction of the appellants for
offence under Sections 302/34 & 201 of I.P.C. is well
merited, as such, the appeal deserves to be dismissed.
7. We have heard learned counsel for the parties, considered
their rival submissions made herein-above and gone through
the records with utmost circumspection.
8. The first and foremost question for consideration as to
whether the death of deceased Padmini Sahu was homicidal
in nature has been answered by the trial Court in affirmative
relying upon the post-mortem report (Ex.P-11) proved by Dr.
Parul Jogi (PW-8), according to which, the cause of death
was throttling, mode of death was asphyxia and nature of
death was homicidal, which in our considered opinion is a
correct finding of fact based on evidence available on record,
it is neither perverse nor contrary to the record and
accordingly, we hereby affirm the said finding.
5
9. The conviction of the appellants is based on the application of
Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act and on the
statements of witnesses Lagan Bai (PW-15), Laxman Prasad
Yadav (PW-16) and Smt. Savitri Yadav (PW-18) i.e. wife of
Laxman Prasad Yadav.
10. Now, the question for consideration is as to whether Section
106 of the Indian Evidence Act would be applicable or not?
11. At this stage, it would be appropriate to quote Section
106 of the Evidence Act, which states as under:-
“106. Burden of proving fact especially
within knowledge.–When any fact is espe-
cially within the knowledge of any person,
the burden of proving that fact is upon him.”
12. In the recent decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the
case of Manharan Rajwade v. State of Chhattisgarh1, the
supreme Court has clearly held that for invoking Section
106 of the Evidence Act, the prosecution ought to have
discharged the burden on it by adducing cogent evidence to
prove the appellants’ presence at the relevant time in his
house and in paragraphs 7 to 10 held as under:
“7. For invoking Section 106 of the Evidence
Act, the prosecution ought to have discharged
the burden on it by adducing cogent evidence to
prove the appellant’s presence at the relevant
time in his house. In this case, going by the
evidence of PW-1, the deceased had already died
before 5:00 p.m., and the said witness stated
that the appellant came back home at 7:00 p.m.
There is no evidence to prove the theory of the
last seen together. Therefore, the prosecution
has not discharged the burden on it to prove1 MANU/SC/0803/2024
6that the appellant was last seen together with
the deceased wife. Thus, Section 106 of the
Evidence Act cannot be invoked to shift the
burden on the appellant.
8. Even the appellant’s answer given to question
no.27, if taken in its entirety, does not support
the prosecution. The appellant vaguely stated
that he came back around 4:00-5:00 p.m. when
PW-1 and PW-2 were in the house and told him
that the deceased was not talking and moving.
Thus, he reached home after the death of his
wife. The allegation was that the death was
caused due to strangulation by the appellant.
9. Therefore, the prosecution has miserably
failed to prove the only circumstance it relied
upon, namely, that the appellant and the
deceased were last seen together. Therefore, the
prosecution has failed to bring home the charge
of the offence of murder punishable under
Section 302 of the IPC.
10. Hence, the impugned judgments and orders
are set aside, and the appellant is acquitted of
the offence alleged against him. The appellant
shall be forthwith set at liberty unless his
detention is required in any other case.”
13. Reverting to the facts of the present case, in light of the
aforesaid principles of law laid down by their Lordships of
the Supreme Court, it is quite vivid that in para-42 of the
impugned judgment, the trial Court has recorded a finding
on the basis of the statement of Lagan Bai (PW-15), Laxman
Prasad Yadav (PW-16) and Smt. Savitri Yadav (PW-18) i.e.
wife of Laxman Prasad Yadav that it has been proved that
the appellants were present at the relevant time at the place
of occurrence and the appellants have not given any
satisfactory explanation in their statement recorded under
Section 313 CrPC as to how and what circumstances
Padmini Sahu died. Thereafter, applying Section 106 of the
7
Indian Evidence Act the trial Court proceeded to convict the
appellants for the aforesaid offences.
14. In order to examine the correctness of the findings recorded
by the trial Court it would be appropriate to look into the
statements of the three witnesses relied upon by it. First of
all, we take the statement of Lagan Bai (PW-15) who has
stated that she was informed by Savitri Yadav (PW-18) that
something was burning in the house (Kothar) of Appellant
No.1 Ramkumar Sahu. Then she went inside the Kothar of
Appellant No.1 and saw the deceased burning inside the
bathroom. At that time, Appellant No.1 was present there
and extinguishing the fire. The daughter of Appellant No.1
Ishwari Sahu was also present there who ran to call
Appellant No.2 Puni Bai who at that time had gone to
someone else’s house to get a plate. In her cross-
examination, she has stated that when she shouted for help,
appellant No.1 came out of the Kothar and started to
extinguish the fire. She has stated that she did not know
where the other accused were. As such, from the statement
of Lagan Bai (PW-15) it is established that only Appellant
No.1 Ramkumar Sahu was present nearby the courtyard
(Kothar) and on her calling for help, he came to the rescue of
the deceased and extinguished the fire. This witness did not
say anything about the presence of appellant No.3. As such,
except the presence of Appellant No.1 on the date and time
of offence in the house, the presence of appellant Nos. 2 & 3
is not established at all from the statement of Lagan Bai
(PW-15).
15. Coming to the statement of Laxman Prasad Yadav (PW-16),
in para-1, he has only stated that he saw one of the
appellants going from his house towards the street on his
8
motorcycle. In paragraph-4, this witness has stated that a
lot of people had gathered at the place of occurrence. At that
time, the dead body of deceased was lying there and
Appellant no.1 Ram Kumar, his wife Appellant No.2 Punni
Bai and their younger daughter Ishwari Bai were present
and appellant No.3 Jagdish came about half an hour after
the incident. As such, the presence of Appellant Nos.1 & 2 in
the house has been stated only by witness Laxman Prasad
Yadav (PW-16) but from his statement, the presence of
Appellant No.3 is not established.
16. Now, coming to the statement of Savitri Yadav (PW-18) wife
of Laxman Prasad Yadav PW-16, she has stated before the
Court that she was informed by her husband Laxman
Prasad Yadav (PW-16) that septic tank of the appellants was
on fire. Then, she called Lagan Bai (PW-15) and went to the
house of the appellants. They went inside the house to see
the incident where Appellant No.1 Ramkumar was present.
She has stated that the fire was so intense that nothing was
visible and even the dead body was not visible. In her cross-
examination, she has clearly stated that Appellant No.2 was
not present in the house and she had gone to someone’s
house in the village. As such, except the presence of
Appellant No.1 in the house, the presence of appellant Nos.
2 & 3 is not established from the statement of Savitri Yadav
(PW-18). From the statement of these three witnesses, the
presence of all the accused persons prior to the incident and
immediately after the incident is not established beyond
reasonable doubt to attract Section 106 of the Evidence Act.
As such, the prosecution has miserably failed to prove the
only circumstance relied upon that the appellants and the
deceased were last seen together in the house.
9
17. In that view of the matter, the prosecution has failed to
bring home the offence against the appellants beyond
reasonable doubt and therefore, we are unable to sustain
the conviction and sentence imposed upon them under
Sections 302/34 and 201/34 of IPC.
18. Accordingly, the impugned judgment dated 21.2.2019 passed
by the Trial Court convicting and sentencing the appellants
for the offence under Sections 302/34 and 201/34 of IPC, is
hereby set aside/quashed and the appellants are acquitted
from the said offence on the basis of benefit of doubt.
19. Appellant Nos.1 & 3 are reported to be in jail. They be
released from jail forthwith, if their detention is not required
in connection with any other offence. Appellant No. 2 is on
bail. She need not surrender, however, her bail bonds shall
remain in force for a period of six months in view of the
provisions contained in Section 437A of the CrPC.
20. This criminal appeal, accordingly, stands allowed.
21. Let a certified copy of this judgment along with the original
record be transmitted forthwith to the concerned trial Court
for necessary information & action, if any. A copy of the
judgment may also be sent to the concerned Jail
Superintendent wherein Appellant Nos. 1 & 3 are suffering
the jail sentence.
Sd/- Sd/-
(Sanjay K. Agrawal) (Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal)
Judge Judge
Khatai
