Eradu And Ors. vs State Of Hyderabad

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 1 November 1955

Coram: Bhagwati

In this matter, the Supreme Court examined two special leave appeals that were filed against the judgment of the High Court of Hyderabad. The High Court had affirmed the convictions and the sentences of transportation for life that had been imposed on four accused persons, referred to as accused 1 through accused 4, by the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge at Medak. The conviction arose from an offence charged under Section 243 of the Indian Penal Code, which corresponds to the offence of murder under Section 302 of the same code. According to the charge sheet, on or about the fifteenth day of Isfandar 1359 F, which corresponds to the fifteenth of January 1950, at approximately ten o’clock at night, the four accused, together with an individual named Baldev Muthiah, allegedly abducted Muneem Lachiah, a resident of Dognelli, while he was at his home. The accused were alleged to have taken him outside the village, to have killed him by striking him with a stick and a spear because of personal enmity, and to have removed a silver kardoda and an arm kada from his body. The prosecution contended that these acts constituted offences punishable under Sections 243 and 330 of the Indian Penal Code. The learned Sessions Judge found the four accused guilty of the offence under Section 243, IPC, and sentenced each of them to transportation for life. In addition, accused 2 was found guilty of an offence under Section 337, IPC, and was sentenced to two years of rigorous imprisonment. The sentences of life transportation were forwarded to the High Court for confirmation in accordance with the statutory procedures applicable in Hyderabad.

The High Court, sitting as the appellate authority, affirmed the conclusion reached by the Sessions Judge and confirmed the convictions of the four accused under Section 243, IPC, together with the life-transportation sentences awarded by the trial court. Within the High Court, one of the learned judges simply confirmed the conviction and sentence under Section 243, IPC. However, another learned judge went further and held that the accused were also guilty of the offences described in Sections 243 and 330 of the Hyderabad Criminal Procedure Code, which is understood to refer to the relevant provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Code. That judge ordered each of the accused to undergo life imprisonment on the basis of those charges, despite the fact that the judgment he concurred with contained no explicit reasoning or justification for a conviction under Section 330, APC. In effect, the High Court’s overall decision was that the accused were convicted solely of the offence under Section 243, APC, and were sentenced to life imprisonment for that offence. It is important to note that the prosecution’s case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, as there was no direct evidence linking the accused to the crime. The circumstantial evidence comprised the testimonies of three witnesses: the wife of the deceased identified as witness 5, the young son of the deceased identified as witness 6, and a neighbour identified as witness 7, each of whom provided statements regarding the circumstances surrounding the alleged abduction and murder.

On the evening of the incident, all four accused went to the deceased’s house, confronted him and asked him to accompany them to Deshmukh’s well. Evidence showed that ill-will existed between the deceased and the accused: the accused had abducted the deceased a month earlier, released him only after a ransom of three hundred and fifty rupees was paid, and, three days before the alleged murder, they had taken a goat belonging to the deceased from Kumari Sayiga (PW 2), slaughtered it and ate it, which caused a quarrel after the deceased searched the houses of accused 1 and accused 2. In addition, the investigation recovered several items: a silver kardoda was found on the basis of a statement by accused 2; a white turban and a stick were recovered from accused 1’s house; and another stick was recovered from accused 3’s house. The silver kardoda was alleged to have been taken from the deceased’s body and buried in a secluded spot identified by accused 2, while the white turban was alleged to have been stained with human blood. These pieces of circumstantial evidence, according to the learned Sessions Judge, inevitably pointed to the conclusion that accused 1, 2, 3 and 4 were responsible for the death. The High Court judges also held that, although no eyewitnesses were present, a strong motive for the murder existed and the fact that all the accused had abducted the deceased on the night before his body was discovered was proved, leading them to conclude that the accused were the perpetrators of the crime.

It was undisputed that the deceased had been killed in a brutal manner; after his death his body was taken to the rear yard of his house and hung there by a rope tied around his neck. The theory of suicide was rightly rejected by the lower courts, and both the inquest report and the medical testimony confirmed that the injuries inflicted on the deceased were homicidal. Consequently, the remaining issue for the courts below was whether accused 1, 2, 3 and 4 were responsible for those injuries and the consequent death. It was also established beyond doubt that the four accused had indeed approached the deceased on that evening, accosted him, and asked him to accompany them to Deshmukh’s well. This fact was proved by the testimonies of PW 5, PW 6 and PW 7, whose evidence was accepted by both the Sessions Judge and the High Court.

In this case the Court observed that the prosecution had failed to produce any evidence linking accused persons one through four with the homicide beyond the fact that they had approached the deceased on the evening in question. No testimony showed any further movement of any of the accused after that encounter, and nothing else tied them to the crime except for a series of recoveries recorded in various panchnamas that had been admitted before the Sessions Judge. The learned counsel for the appellants argued that those panchnamas contained inadmissible statements purportedly made by accused one, two and three regarding their participation in the offence. After the Court excluded those improper statements, the remaining content of the panchnamas indicated only that the accused had identified certain articles that were subsequently recovered at their suggestion. Specifically, a silver kardoda was said to have been recovered at the instance of accused two; a white turban and a wooden stick were recovered at the instance of accused one; and an additional wooden stick was recovered at the instance of accused three. The white turban was alleged to have been stained with human blood, but it had never been submitted for forensic analysis, and therefore the allegation remained unverified. The sticks were not claimed to bear any bloodstains and were indistinguishable from ordinary sticks that might be found in the locality. The silver kardoda was a common article in the area, and the only connection between it and the deceased’s own kardoda was the uncorroborated testimony of the deceased’s wife. Consequently, the Court concluded that none of these recoveries established a substantive link between any of the accused and the murder. At most, the recovery of the silver kardoda suggested that accused two had become aware of the item after it had been removed from the victim by the actual perpetrator, which was insufficient to sustain a charge of murder. Similarly, the sticks and the turban recovered at the suggestion of accused one, and the stick recovered at the suggestion of accused three, were ordinary objects that did not prove they were the weapon or that the accused had used them in the crime. Thus, the evidence was inadequate to attach criminal responsibility to accused one, two or three.

The Court also found that the alleged motive advanced against accused one through four did not aid the prosecution’s case. A previous incident in which the accused had abducted the deceased and subsequently released him after receiving a ransom of three hundred and fifty rupees did not demonstrate any animus toward the victim; the receipt of money did not create a grievance. A later episode in which the accused allegedly slaughtered and consumed a goat might have caused some irritation, but any bitterness would have originated with the deceased rather than with the accused. The testimony of the deceased’s wife concerning that incident was not persuasive enough to convince the Court. Hence, the Court held that neither the alleged motive nor the prior incidents provided a sufficient basis to infer that the accused harboured a hostile intent that could explain the homicide.

In this case the Court observed that the allegation that the accused had abducted the deceased and then released him after receiving a ransom of three hundred and fifty rupees did not demonstrate any hostility on the part of the accused toward the deceased. Even if the accused did receive such a small ransom, the Court held that receipt of the money could not be taken as proof that the accused bore any ill-will against the victim. The later allegation that the accused slaughtered a goat and ate it was said to possibly have caused some resentment, but the Court noted that any bitterness would have been felt by the deceased, not by those who consumed the goat. The testimony of the deceased’s wife, identified as PW 5, that this goat incident had prompted the accused to lure the deceased away was not found persuasive enough to convince the Court.

The Court further noted that the inquest report dated sixteen-January-1950 recorded the wife’s statement that the accused had called her husband to settle the account of an excise contract. However, in her evidence before the Sessions Court the same wife told the Court that, when questioned why the accused were taking her husband away, they replied that they had eaten the goat and wanted to repay him for it. The Court found these two statements to be irreconcilable and emphasized that neither version was supported by the testimony of PW 6 or PW 7. Consequently, the prosecution failed to establish a motive on the basis of these contradictory statements, and the lack of a motive was a material weakness in the case against the accused.

Having found that neither the alleged motive nor any of the physical recoveries linked the accused to the crime, the Court identified the only remaining circumstance as the fact that the accused had confronted the deceased on the evening in question and taken him to the well of Deshmukh. The Court held that, on that basis alone, the only offence that could be legally attributed to the accused was abduction, an offence carrying a maximum punishment of less than five years’ imprisonment. The Court observed that all the accused had already been serving rigorous imprisonment for more than five years, which the Court considered sufficient punishment even if the abduction had been proved. Finally, the Court concluded that the conviction under Section 243 of the A.P. Code could not be upheld because, as a fundamental principle of criminal law, circumstantial evidence must inevitably point to the accused and be inconsistent with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence; the evidence on record did not satisfy that requirement.

The Court noted that the two subordinate Courts had concluded that the mere fact that accused persons 1 to 4 had enticed the deceased away on the evening in question, together with the subsequent discovery of the deceased’s body hanging in the doddi, that is, the backyard of his house, was by itself enough to lead inevitably to the inference that those accused and only those accused were responsible for the crime. The Court disagreed with that conclusion, observing that those two circumstances, standing alone, do not create a necessary causal connection between the accused and the alleged offence; consequently the accused are entitled to be acquitted of the charges brought against them. The Court further pointed out that the principle governing the use of circumstantial evidence requires that such evidence must point inevitably to the guilt of the accused and must be incompatible with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence, a standard that was not satisfied by the material on record. In view of the fact that the accused have already served rigorous imprisonment for five years or more, the Court found it unnecessary to order any further investigation into any other offence that accused persons 1 to 4 might be alleged to have committed in connection with the occurrence. With respect to accused 2, the Court also saw no need to express any further opinion on his conviction under Section 337 of the A.P. Code because he has already completed a term of two years of rigorous imprisonment imposed by the learned Sessions Judge for the same offence. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeals, set aside the convictions and sentences imposed under Section 243 of the A.P. Code, and ordered that the appellants be discharged and released forthwith.