Pangambam Kalanjoy Singh vs State Of Manipur

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 24 April, 1952

Coram: Chandrasekhara Aiyar, Bose, J.

The Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment in the case of Pangambam Kalanjoy Singh versus the State of Manipur, heard on 24 April 1952. The judgment was authored by Justice Chandrasekhara Aiyar, with Justice Bose also noted as a judge of the bench. The matter before the Court was an appeal against a conviction for murder that carried the mandatory sentence of death. The appellant had been tried before the Judicial Commissioner of Manipur, a Part C State where the Criminal Procedure Code did not apply, although the Indian Evidence Act was in force.

Although the Criminal Procedure Code was not formally applicable in Manipur, the trial was conducted in substantial conformity with the procedural requirements laid down in that Code. Because the State of Manipur lacked a specific appellate tribunal for a case of this seriousness, the Supreme Court entertained the appeal as an ordinary appeal and undertook a full review of the evidence presented at trial. The factual background of the case involved the killing of two women—namely the appellant’s wife and his mother-in-law—during the night of 4 August and the early hours of 5 August 1951. The two victims did not reside in the appellant’s own dwelling but lived in the house of the mother-in-law. There had been a period of estrangement between the appellant and his wife, and at the time of the incident the wife was not living with the appellant.

The occurrence of murder was not contested. Both victims had been subjected to a savage assault with a sharp-edged weapon and were literally hacked to death. One of the women sustained ten distinct injuries, while the other suffered eight injuries. The first discovery of the crime was made by Bino Singh, identified as PW 10. He reported hearing cries during the night emanating from the house where the women lived. Because it was dark, he called to his mother-in-law, Angang Ibema Debi (PW 7), to fetch a lamp. Upon bringing illumination, the two entered the premises and found one of the women dead and the other unconscious. Another witness, Aber Singh (PW 9), who had heard the cries at the same time, also proceeded to the location and found the earlier two witnesses already present. Both Aber Singh and Bino Singh observed a hole in the wall of the house and also the scabbard of a Khukri, which the latter described as being wrapped in a comforter hanging on a loom.

Subsequent to these discoveries, the news of the incident spread, and Bino Singh, among others, went to inform the village watchman Mohuri Singh, identified as PW 6. The watchman initially inspected the scene himself, observed the circumstances of the crime, and then proceeded to the police station located approximately three and a half miles away. There he lodged the First Information Report at seven o’clock in the morning. In his testimony, the watchman stated that he had noticed the hole in the wall when he examined the scene, but he did not observe the Khukri scabbard at that time. He explained that he included the detail about the scabbard in the report because Aber Singh, who had accompanied him to the police station, had informed him that an empty scabbard of a Khukri was present in the house.

In this case, the Court observed that Bino Singh, who testified that he had also seen a knife that later appeared as Exhibit P-4, did not inform the watchman of the knife but mentioned only the empty scabbard. The Court found this noteworthy because the First Information Report recorded the presence of the scabbard but made no reference to the knife. The report further showed that the scabbard belonged to the watchman who filed the report, not to the appellant. The First Information Report, among other statements, described a hole in the wall of the house through which the murderer had entered, noted that a scabbard of a khukri was discovered at that spot, and declared that the identity of the murderer was still unknown and that it could not yet be determined how many persons had entered and performed the act.

The Court further recounted that shortly after the report was made, a procession arrived at the police station carrying two women, one dead and the other unconscious, and that the appellant was among those in the procession. The Sub-Inspector, identified as PW-12, testified that he arrested the appellant immediately upon his arrival because an unnamed informant, who had spoken to the Sub-Inspector after the First Information Report was recorded, claimed that the appellant bore a grudge against the women and was probably responsible. Acting on that information, the Sub-Inspector said he apprehended the appellant “at the very moment he reached the police station.” Subsequently, the police proceeded to the scene, observed the hole in the wall, and the appellant drew their attention to it. Based on information supplied by the appellant, the Sub-Inspector went to the watchman’s house to recover the khukri alleged to be the weapon of offense. He stated that the watchman was initially absent, though his wife was present, and that the watchman returned while the search was in progress. The Sub-Inspector then asked the watchman about the khukri, which the watchman claimed to have handed over to the accused the previous night. The watchman led the Sub-Inspector to a nearby nullah, where, in the Sub-Inspector’s presence, the khukri (Exhibit P-1) was retrieved from the water. After the recovery, the Sub-Inspector arrested the watchman as well. The watchman’s own testimony corroborated this sequence, indicating that after filing the First Information Report he was not questioned by the police until they came to his house, where he was asked by the police officer to produce the khukri that the accused had supposedly returned to him during the night.

In this case, the Court observed that the police were aware the appellant had taken a Khukri from the chaukidar’s house and had returned it during the night before the police reached the chaukidar’s residence, yet this information was not derived from the chaukidar because his First Information Report merely stated that he did not know the murderers and did not identify the scabbard as his own. The Court noted that there was no contact between the chaukidar and the police from the moment the chaukidar filed the First Information Report until the time he met the police at his home, making it clear that the police could not have learned of the appellant’s nocturnal return of the dagger from the chaukidar; the record contains no indication of how the police obtained that fact at that stage. From this circumstance, the Court inferred that, if the evidence is true, the chaukidar must have either known that the appellant was the murderer or at least suspected it when he went to lodge the First Information Report, for otherwise he would not have thrown his own Khukri into the nala immediately before setting out to make the report. The Court further identified the only other pieces of evidence against the appellant, aside from his confession, as follows: first, the appellant was not residing with his wife, apparently because of some estrangement; second, the testimony of Apabi Debi, identified as PW 5, who appeared to be about ten or twelve years old, indicated that the appellant had seized his wife’s sari the previous day, drawn out a Khukri, and that the wife had complained to the girl about his conduct; and third, the statement of Nangbi Devi, PW 4, the chaukidar’s wife, that the appellant had visited her husband’s house the previous day and borrowed a Khukri despite her protests. The Court held that such evidence would not be sufficient to sustain a conviction, noting that the hole in the wall was not discovered because of anything the appellant said nor because of the Khukri, and that no bloodstains were found on the Khukri, which was natural because it had been submerged in water for several hours. Turning to the confession, the Court recorded that it was made at 1-10 p.m. on the sixth day, but the appellant retracted it at the earliest possible opportunity, namely before the Committing Magistrate, and that this retraction was upheld by the Court of the Judicial Commissioner. While the Court acknowledged that the confession was inculpatory, it emphasized that corroboration was required because of the retraction. Finally, the Court noted that the confession disclosed a grudge the appellant bore against two women, stemming from his wife’s refusal to continue living with him and the encouragement he received from his mother-in-law.

In the confession, the appellant first referred to the hole in the wall and narrated the killings, after which he stated, “In that very house I was determined to die myself and I managed to thrust a knife available in that house into my throat.... After I had begun to pierce my throat, I found that I could not die. Then I thought again that if we three died together there would be troubles as to not knowing the cause of death to the villagers...For showing signs that I killed them, I left the cover of the Khukri, the muffler, ganji and one rubber shoe outside, but in a secure place of the house. I proceeded with the Khukri to the house of the son of my uncle Pangambam Mohori Singh (P.W. 6). Then I caused my sister-in-law to open the door of her house and put inside stealthily the Khukri by the side of her almirah. After saying to her that I came to ask whether my brother had returned home, I returned home and went to bed. On the following morning I went to the Thana along with the villagers who carried my wife in a dying condition.” Regarding the alleged suicide attempt, the only physical corroboration was a small cut on the appellant’s throat measuring approximately one quarter inch by one sixth inch and extending only through the skin. The Court observed that such a superficial wound was not the type one would expect from a man who was desperate to cut his throat with a sharp knife. In the Judicial Commissioner’s Court, the appellant explained the neck injury by saying, “The injury on the neck was due to the striking of the point fuel wood which I was cutting.” In the Committing Magistrate’s Court, a long and confused line of questioning was directed at the appellant, mixing several facts, and he failed to answer on this point, likely because of the confusion. The medical witness, P.W. 1, testified that the wound could have been caused by a sharply pointed dry branch of a tree, an explanation that was consistent with the appellant’s own statement. Consequently, the Court found the injury to be satisfactorily explained. The Court then considered the testimony of the chaukidar’s wife, Nangbi Devi (P.W. 4), and concluded that her evidence did not corroborate the confession. The confession made no reference to the appellant obtaining a Khukri from her house despite her protests, nor did it mention the appellant arriving at the house in the middle of the night and hiding the Khukri behind the almirah. Although the appellant claimed he hid the weapon stealthily and therefore she might not have known, the Court reasoned that such an unusual nocturnal visit would ordinarily have been mentioned by her. Moreover, the chaukidar himself (P.W. 6) directly contradicted the portion of the confession concerning the retrieval of the Khukri, indicating that the appellant’s statements on this matter could not be true.

In this case, the Court observed that the appellant had become aware of the chaukidar’s statement while police were conducting a search of the house, and that this awareness occurred just before the police arrested the chaukidar himself. The Court further noted that the appellant learned that the chaukidar had thrown the Khukri into the nala and later recovered it from that location. The Court then considered the reliability of the chaukidar as a witness. It found the chaukidar to be a very unsatisfactory witness and recorded that the learned Judicial Commissioner had also commented on the chaukidar’s unsatisfactory demeanour. From these observations, the Court concluded that the chaukidar had not disclosed the whole truth. In addition, the Court held that the explanations given in the appellant’s confession concerning his actions after the murder were not true. The Court reasoned that if the appellant had truly intended to inform the villagers about who was responsible for the murders, he would either have surrendered himself to the authorities or, at the very least, would have left the Khukri, the weapon used in the murders, at the scene rather than merely leaving the scabbard. The Court found it meaningless that a muffler, a ganji and a single rubber shoe—items that no one identified as belonging to the appellant—were left behind, a move that appeared intended only to implicate the appellant himself. After weighing all the evidence together, the Court expressed the view that sizeable doubts remained and that it would be unsafe to uphold a conviction on such an uncertain basis. Accordingly, granting the benefit of the doubt to the appellant, the Court set aside the conviction and the sentence and directed that the appellant be released.