Kutuhal Yadav vs State Of Bihar

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 13 January, 1954

Coram: Bhagwati

In the matter of Kutuhal Yadav versus the State of Bihar, decided on 13 January 1954, a single-judge bench of the Supreme Court delivered the judgment authored by Justice Bhagwati. The case arose on an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the Patna High Court, which had dismissed the appellant’s earlier appeal and had affirmed the death sentence imposed by the learned Sessions Judge of Monghyr.

The appellant was charged with having, on or about the night of 10 December 1952 extending into 11 December 1952, in the village of Dariapur Tetaria, District Monghyr, Police Station Kharagpur, intentionally caused the death of Musammat Sobha, thereby committing murder punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. In addition, he faced charges under Section 201 read with Section 511 of the same Code. The trial was conducted before a Sessions Court with the assistance of four assessors, all of whom unanimously concluded that the appellant was guilty of murder as well as the subsidiary offence. The learned Sessions Judge concurred with the assessors, convicted the appellant of murder and sentenced him to death, subject to confirmation by the High Court. The appellant then filed an appeal from jail; both the appeal and the reference made by the Sessions Judge were considered by the High Court, which affirmed the lower court’s findings and the death sentence.

The prosecution’s case presented Musammat Sobha as an elderly woman of approximately seventy years who resided with her son-in-law Sattan Jadav and grandson Jugeshwar. She owned between three and a half and four bighas of land and, on the occasion of Jugeshwar’s marriage, had transferred about one and a half bighas to him. The remaining land was cultivated by Sattan on her behalf. Although the appellant was not directly related to Musammat Sobha, his wife was related through the sister of her maternal grandmother. Musammat Sobha occasionally disagreed with her son-in-law and grandson, and on such occasions she stayed at the appellant’s house. Approximately eight to ten days before the fatal night, she visited the appellant’s residence after being invited to partake of sweets made from fresh milk of a recently calved she-buffalo. She remained there for several days, and on 8 December 1952 she went to the Sub-Registrar’s office at Kharagpur, where she executed and registered a deed of sale in favor of the appellant’s son concerning two bighas and nineteen dhurs of land. When Sattan learned of this deed, he visited the appellant’s house to make inquiries, and upon discovering that the deed had been executed, he filed an information report at the police station.

In response to the recent conveyance of land, Sattan filed an application before the Sub-Registrar, using his son’s name as the petitioner. In that application he asserted that the elderly woman, Musammat Sobha, was of poor understanding and that no monetary consideration had been paid for the sale of the property. He therefore prayed that the Sub-Registrar order an enquiry among the villagers to determine the woman’s mental capacity at the time of execution of the deed. Concurrently, Sattan presented a statement to the police station in which he alleged that the sale deed had been procured through undue influence and pressure exerted upon the woman. Both the application to the Sub-Registrar and the police information were lodged on the morning of 10 December 1952. The sale deed in question had been executed a few days earlier, on 8 December 1952, when the woman had signed the document in favour of the appellant’s son. The very next day, early in the morning of 11 December 1952, the villagers discovered that the elderly woman was dead. This discovery set in motion the criminal investigation that formed the basis of the present case.

The prosecution’s case stated that, early on the morning of 11 December, the appellant travelled to a neighbouring village to purchase cloth for a coffin. After obtaining the cloth, the appellant returned with the intent to cremate the dead body. Sattan and other villagers, suspecting foul play, informed the village watchman (chowkidar) and the local police officer (daffadar). Both officials arrived at the scene and prevented the appellant from removing the body for cremation. One villager, Jagdish Jadhav, identified as witness 1, was then dispatched to the police station located about nine miles from the village. He arrived at the station at approximately 11 a.m. on 11 December and gave a formal information to the police. An inquest was subsequently ordered, and the deceased’s body was sent to the Civil Surgeon of Monghyr for a post-mortem examination, which was conducted on 12 December 1952 at 9 a.m. During the autopsy the surgeon observed a patch of ecchymosis three inches in diameter on the left side of the chest, situated over the second and third intercostal spaces along the mammary line. The injury had produced a fracture of the third rib and a fracture of the adjacent portion of the sternum. The surgeon opined that these injuries were ante-mortem and could have been caused either by blows with a hard, blunt object or by the application of heavy pressure to the chest. He explained that such pressure might result from a person placing his body weight, his hand, or even a knee, onto the victim’s chest while she lay supine, a method that could leave no external marks. The medical opinion was that the woman died from shock produced by these chest injuries. Upon receipt of the post-mortem report, the earlier police information was treated as the first information report in a murder case. Further investigation led the authorities to file a challan against the appellant before the Magistrate, who, after a preliminary enquiry, committed the case for trial.

The magistrate, after a preliminary enquiry, committed the appellant to the Sessions Court. The appellant contended that the elderly woman had died of natural causes and that he had been wrongly implicated. In his statement before the Sessions Court, the appellant asserted that the woman had suffered from dysentery for approximately two months and that, on the morning of 11 December 1952, he discovered her dead.

The learned Sessions Judge first held that Musammat Sobha had not died naturally but had died as a result of injuries to her chest that caused a fracture of the third rib and the sternum. The judge further found that the surrounding circumstances indicated that the only reasonable inference was that the appellant had inflicted those chest injuries on the night of 10 December 1952, and that the injuries had caused her death. Consequently, the judge concluded that the circumstances proved against the appellant were incompatible with his claim of innocence. The appellant was therefore found guilty of murder and of attempting to cremate the dead body in order to eliminate evidence of the offence.

When the appeal was heard before the High Court, counsel for the appellant reviewed the entire evidence on record. He argued that the evidence did not convincingly establish that the woman had been killed and that the hypothesis of a natural death could not be completely excluded. He maintained that the prosecution’s case rested wholly on circumstantial evidence and that the circumstances alleged against the appellant did not preclude alternative explanations; therefore, the chain of circumstances was not sufficiently complete to prove the appellant’s guilt. He further urged that such circumstantial evidence should be examined carefully in light of the rules governing its probative value.

The High Court rejected the appellant’s suggestion that the woman died naturally of dysentery, holding that the medical evidence established an unnatural death as described by the doctor. To determine who caused the fatal injuries, the Court examined the circumstances, grouping them under four headings. First, the fact that the woman was found dead in the appellant’s house, where she had been residing for several days before the night of 10 December 1952. Second, the appellant’s purchase of a cloth for a coffin early on the morning of 11 December 1952 and his attempt to move the body for cremation. Third, the circumstances arising from the execution of a sale deed on 8 December 1952 and the petition and information filed against that deed on 10 December 1952. Fourth, the false explanation offered by the appellant concerning the woman’s death. After scrutinising all these circumstances and the arguments presented by counsel for the appellant, the Court applied the tests laid down in Hanumant Govind Nargundkar v. State of Madhya Pradesh and found that they were satisfied. The Court held that the only reasonable hypothesis was that the appellant had killed the woman on the night of 10 December by applying pressure to her chest. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed and the death sentence imposed by the Sessions Judge was confirmed.

The Court observed that the sale deed had been executed on the eighth of December 1952 and that a petition and information challenging that deed were filed on the tenth of December 1952. It also noted that the appellant had given a false explanation regarding the death of the old woman. After examining all of these circumstances together with the submissions made by counsel for the appellant, the Court held that the criteria laid down in the decision of Hanumant Govind Nargundkar v. State of Madhya Pradesh were satisfied. Consequently, the Court concluded that the only reasonable hypothesis was that the appellant had caused the old woman’s death on the night of the tenth of December by applying pressure to her chest. In accordance with that finding, the Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the death sentence that the learned Sessions Judge had imposed on the appellant.

Counsel for the appellant, appearing before this Court, stressed that there was no evidence establishing that the old woman had been sleeping in the interior room on the night in question, and that the possibility of her having slept in the verandah had not been eliminated. On that basis, counsel argued that another person, such as the son-in-law or the grandson, could have inflicted the fatal injuries. Counsel contended that both the son-in-law and the grandson possessed a motive to eliminate the old woman because they feared that, if she remained alive, she might support the appellant in the proceedings that were being taken to obtain possession of the lands that formed the subject-matter of the sale deed. Additionally, counsel suggested that the old woman might have created further complications by transferring the remaining properties in the manner she had done. Counsel further maintained that the appellant’s conduct was consistent with innocence, pointing out that on the morning of the eleventh of December 1952 the appellant had informed everyone he met that the old woman was dead and had proceeded to purchase cloth for a coffin in order to arrange for her cremation.

The Court described the appellant’s dwelling as consisting of a single small room and a verandah at the front, surrounded by an open courtyard on all sides. The appellant resided there with his wife and a ten-year-old son. It was submitted that the evidence did not show that the old woman had been sleeping in the same room as the appellant, his wife, and their young son on the night under consideration. Moreover, there was no basis for the inference that, on that December night, the old woman could not have been sleeping in the verandah outside the room. The old woman, being seventy years of age, was therefore reasonably expected not to have chosen the verandah as a place of sleep on a cold December night.

The Court observed that, contrary to the Appellant’s claim that the old woman was sleeping on the verandah, the evidence indicated that she was actually sleeping inside the single room together with the Appellant, his wife and their ten-year-old son, especially because two days before her death she had executed a deed of sale in favour of the Appellant’s son and had thereby created a legal obligation on the Appellant. If this factual premise is accepted, then the only person who could have inflicted the fatal injury upon the old woman would be the Appellant himself, and no other individual could be held responsible. The Court noted that the Appellant had ample opportunity to commit the act, as he was present in the same room at the time. It was submitted, however, that the old woman’s son-in-law and her grandson might have had a better chance of causing her death because their own house was relatively nearby and, if the old woman had indeed been sleeping on the verandah as the Appellant alleged, they would have been positioned to reach her more easily. The Court pointed out that the son-in-law’s and grandson’s house was actually situated about 250 yards from the Appellant’s dwelling, and therefore, even if the old woman had been on the verandah, the Appellant still enjoyed a greater opportunity to perpetrate the offence than the distant relatives. The Court further reasoned that, had the son-in-law or the grandson been the actual perpetrator, the Appellant would inevitably have become aware of the incident, because the old woman would almost certainly have struggled and raised a cry, prompting the Appellant to emerge from his room and be in a position to apprehend the assailant. No such indication of a struggle or a cry appeared anywhere in the record, and consequently the Court discarded the suggestion advanced by counsel for the Appellant. Regarding motive, the Court found that the Appellant possessed a stronger motive to cause the old woman’s death than did the son-in-law or the grandson. The deed of sale, which the old woman executed, expressly declared that she was the exclusive owner of the lands concerned and that she was conveying those lands to the Appellant’s son, thereby making the son the absolute owner. Since the conveyance was made by the old woman in her capacity as the absolute owner, the Court held that, after her death, there was no realistic prospect that the grandson, who would be her stridhan heir, could take effective steps to set aside the deed. Moreover, any attempt to overturn the deed would have to be initiated by the old woman herself; it would therefore be irrational for the grandson to contemplate such a step.

In this case, the Court observed that the appellant possessed a stronger motive to cause the death of the old woman than either the son-in-law or the grandson. The Court explained that, had the old woman survived, there was a considerable likelihood that the son-in-law and the grandson would persuade her to support legal proceedings seeking to set aside the deed of sale. Given the circumstances surrounding the execution of that deed, such a challenge would have left the appellant without any viable defence. The Court further noted that the statements concerning the necessity of the sale and the consideration offered were false, making it almost impossible for the appellant to defend any action brought by the old woman to rescind the deed. Consequently, it was in the appellant’s interest to ensure that the old woman was permanently silenced and unable to provide testimony capable of overturning the deed of sale. The Court therefore concluded that the appellant’s motive to eliminate the old woman was greater than that of the son-in-law or the grandson, who were the only other persons suggested as possible assailants. The High Court, after analysing the entire evidence, correctly held that no stranger, including the son-in-law or the grandson, possessed any motive to kill the old woman, whereas the appellant had both motive and opportunity to cause her death in the manner alleged by the prosecution. The Court also observed that the appellant’s conduct after the death was not exonerating; it was true that when neighbours confronted him while he was purchasing coffin cloth, he reported that the old woman had died. However, this statement did not establish his innocence, because if the death had been natural as the appellant claimed, a reasonable expectation would have been that he inform the son-in-law and the grandson and request their assistance in arranging cremation. The appellant failed to do so; the son-in-law and the grandson learned of the death only after a hulla was sounded in the morning, prompting them to rush to the appellant’s residence where they discovered the old woman lying dead on a charpoy in the Angan. Moreover, the appellant’s subsequent behaviour was highly prejudicial, as both the daffadar and the chowkidar barred him from taking the body for cremation because they suspected foul play. The appellant persisted in insisting on an immediate cremation, and the officials’ intervention was the only factor that prevented him from carrying out that intention.

The Court observed that the conduct of the Appellant, far from establishing his innocence, actually demonstrated that he was fully aware of the way in which the old woman had died. The Court noted that the Appellant was extremely eager to get rid of the dead body quickly, apparently to prevent any suspicion or proof that the woman had died a non-natural death. The Court further recorded that a post-mortem examination carried out by the Civil Surgeon had indeed confirmed that the death was unnatural. Having examined the evidence, the Court concluded that both the Sessions Judge and the High Court were correct in holding that the prosecution had successfully proved the Appellant’s guilt. Consequently, the Court held that the conviction of the Appellant and the death sentence imposed on him were proper. In line with this finding, the Court dismissed the appeal.