Tarachand Damu Sutar vs The State Of Maharashtra

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

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 341 of 1960

Decision Date: 04/05/1961

Coram: J. L. Kapur, M. Hidayatullah, J. C. Shah, Raghubar Dayal, Subba Rao

In this case the Court recorded that the petitioner, Tarachand Damu Sutar, was tried for an offence under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for the murder of his wife. The primary evidence against him consisted of the dying declaration of the deceased, which was not supported by any other material. The Sessions Judge accepted the dying declaration as sufficient and convicted the petitioner under section 304, Part I of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The State of Maharashtra appealed the conviction and the High Court of Bombay set aside the Sessions judgment, convicted the petitioner under section 302, and imposed the death penalty. The petitioner then contended that he possessed a statutory right of appeal to the Supreme Court under article 134(1)(a) of the Constitution of India and that his conviction was legally unsound. The Court noted the citation of the case Kishan Singh v. The King‑Emperor, (1928) L.R. 55, I.A. 390, and observed that the term “acquittal” in article 134(1)(a) does not require a complete discharge of the charge; it also embraces a situation where the accused is found guilty of a lesser offence. Accordingly, the Court held that the petitioner was entitled to invoke the constitutional right of appeal.

The Court, speaking through Justices Kapur, Subba Rao and Shah, affirmed that the conviction and death sentence imposed by the High Court were legally valid. It declared that a conviction could lawfully be based on an uncorroborated dying declaration and that both the Sessions Judge and the High Court had correctly accepted the declaration, finding no material on the record that undermined their conclusions. The judgment also referred to Khushal Rao v. The State of Bombay, (1958) S.C.R. 552, in support of this view. Separate observations were made by Justices Hidayatullah and Dayal, who explained that in an appeal under article 134(1)(a) the Supreme Court must reassess the evidence afresh and is not bound by the procedural practice applicable to special‑leave appeals under article 136, where lower‑court findings are disturbed only in the presence of special circumstances. Consequently, the Court emphasized that the appellate review under article 134(1)(a) involves a full re‑examination of the material on record without deference to the earlier courts' concurrent findings, unless exceptional conditions warrant interference.

The Court observed that a conviction could be affirmed only when special circumstances existed, and it held that in the present case it was not safe to rely on the dying declaration; consequently the appellant was entitled to be acquitted. The judgment concerned a criminal appeal filed under special leave, identified as Criminal Appeal No 341 of 1960, which challenged the judgment and order dated 20 July 1960 of the Bombay High Court in Criminal Appeals Nos 488 and 426 of 1960, together with review applications Nos 555 and 641 of 1960. Counsel for the appellant was G C Mathur, while counsel for the respondent comprised B R L Iyengar and D Gupta. The judgment was delivered on 4 May 1961. The opinion of Justices Kapur, Subba Rao and Shah was delivered by Justice Kapur, and the opinion of Justices Hidayatullah and Dayal was delivered by Justice Dayal. Justice Kapur’s opinion formed the basis of the appeal against the order of the Bombay High Court that had imposed the death sentence on the appellant, an order that itself was passed on the appeal by the State against the decision of the Sessions Judge, Dhulia.

The factual background presented to the Court was as follows: Around 1950 the appellant married Sindhubai, the daughter of Chandrabhagabai. Sindhubai, who later became the deceased, had received education up to the seventh standard. The married couple lived in a single‑room tenement situated in a building owned by a pleader named Tavar. The building contained twelve to fifteen such tenements. The appellant’s tenement was located close to that of his cousin Shantabai, who lived there with her husband Pandu Genda. Chandrabhagabai’s house lay about a furlong away from the appellant’s residence. Initially the relationship between the appellant and Sindhubai was normal, but approximately two years before the incident serious differences emerged and frequent quarrels ensued. A child of the marriage, Urmila, was born about one and a half years before the occurrence.

According to the record, Sindhubai frequently visited her mother’s house, an arrangement to which the appellant objected. He subsequently stopped providing her with basic necessities such as food grains. About a week before Diwali, the appellant is said to have assaulted her. Sindhubai habitually ate her meals at her mother’s home, while the appellant took his meals with his cousin Shantabai; their daughter Urmila stayed with Sindhubai’s mother during the daytime. The fatal occurrence took place on Bhaubij day, 2 November 1959, between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. After having lunch at her mother’s house, Sindhubai returned to her marital home and went to sleep in the afternoon. While she was asleep, the appellant allegedly beat her, then sprinkled kerosene oil on her clothing and set the garments alight. With her clothes burning, Sindhubai attempted to flee toward Shantabai’s house but collapsed in front of it and was nearly naked when an unidentified person covered her with a dhoti. Chandrabhagabai received information about the incident from her niece Suman, rushed to the scene and discovered Sindhubai’s burnt body. The cousin Shantabai and her husband Pandu Genda also arrived at the spot following Chandrabhagabai’s enquiry. The subsequent investigation recorded Sindhubai’s dying declaration, which identified her husband as the person who had set fire to her clothes after dousing them with kerosene oil. The appellant’s defence was based on an alibi, asserting that he was working at a construction site belonging to Mulchand Rajmal at Nehru Nagar at the time of the alleged offence and maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

In the course of the investigation, the husband of the deceased, Pandu Genda, arrived at the scene, and upon questioning by Chandrabhagabai, the deceased disclosed that her husband had poured kerosene oil on her clothing and then ignited the flames. At that moment, a police constable who was on duty informed the nearby police station, after which an ambulance was dispatched and the injured woman was taken to the Civil Hospital in Dhulia at approximately four fifteen in the afternoon. The attending physician, Dr. Javeri, examined the victim, provided medical treatment, and during his inquiries the deceased reiterated that her husband had set fire to her garments after applying kerosene oil. Following this information, Dr. Javeri reported the incident to the police and recommended that a dying declaration be formally recorded. Consequently, at about five thirty in the evening, the Magistrate, Mr. Mhatre, recorded the victim’s statement in the form of questions and answers, but the woman succumbed to her injuries at eight fifteen p.m. on the same day while still in the hospital. The appellant’s defence was based on an alibi, asserting that he had been at his place of employment on the construction site of Mulchand Rajmal’s house in Nehru Nagar and therefore bore no responsibility for the offence. The trial court, after evaluating the evidence, concluded that the appellant had indeed doused the deceased’s clothing with kerosene oil and set it ablaze, manifesting an intention to cause bodily harm that was likely to result in death. Accordingly, the court convicted the appellant under section 304 Part 1 of the Indian Penal Code, imposed three years of rigorous imprisonment, and levied a fine of one hundred rupees. In reaching this judgment, the learned judge accepted the testimony of the mother, Chandrabhagabai, regarding the dying declaration, the observations of Dr. Javeri, and the formal dying declaration recorded by the Magistrate. In every dying declaration, the deceased consistently accused the appellant of setting fire to her clothes, thereby causing severe burns. The State appealed the conviction to the High Court, which, overturning the trial court’s judgment, convicted the appellant under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to death. The appellant then sought a certificate to appeal to this Court under Article 134 (1) (a), but the certificate was denied, prompting this Court to grant special leave under Article 136 of the Constitution. The primary issue for determination was whether the appellant possessed a right of appeal to this Court under Article 134 (1) (a). The answer to that question required an interpretation of the language employed in the provision, which reads: “134 (1) 'An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court from any judgment, final order or sentence in a criminal proceeding of a High Court in the territory of India if the High Court— (a) has on appeal reversed an order of acquittal of an accused person and sentenced him to death.'” Accordingly, if the High Court reverses an order of acquittal of an accused and imposes the death penalty, an appeal to the Supreme Court is permissible.

In considering whether the appellant possessed a statutory right of appeal under Article 134(1)(a), the Court examined the opposing contentions. The appellant argued that his situation fell within the expression “reversed an order of acquittal” because he had been cleared of the offence charged under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and, in the same proceeding, had been convicted of a lesser offence, namely section 304(1). Accordingly, the appellant maintained that the High Court, on appeal, had reversed an order of acquittal and therefore a certificate of appeal was mandatory. By contrast, the State contended that the term “acquittal” should be interpreted narrowly to mean a complete acquittal of all charges against the accused, and that a conviction for any offence, even a lesser one, would preclude the existence of an acquittal for the purpose of Article 134(1)(a). The resolution of the issue, the Court observed, required a proper construction of the word “acquittal”. The Court posed the question: where a person is acquitted of the specific charge originally framed but is subsequently found guilty of a different, lesser offence, can it be said that an acquittal has occurred and that the High Court, on appeal, has reversed that acquittal? In answering this, the Court held that the word “acquittal” does not demand that the trial end in a total and absolute discharge of the accused from every charge. Rather, the term also embraces a situation where the accused is cleared of the principal offence for which he was tried and is instead convicted of a minor offence. This broader interpretation was supported by precedent delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Kishan Singh v. The King Emperor.

In the Kishan Singh case, the accused had been tried before a Sessions Judge on a charge of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code but was ultimately convicted under section 304 for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the conviction being made on the basis of the power conferred by section 238(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The trial judge sentenced the accused to five years of rigorous imprisonment, and no formal acquittal of the murder charge was entered. The local government did not appeal to the High Court but instead filed a revision petition under section 439, alleging that the conviction should have been for murder and that the sentence imposed was inadequate. The High Court, on review, altered the conviction to murder and imposed the death penalty. Upon further appeal to the Privy Council, the Committee held that the trial court’s finding should be regarded as an acquittal on the murder charge and that, under section 439(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code, the term “acquittal” was not limited to a complete acquittal of all charges. Sir Lancelot Sanderson, delivering the opinion of the Privy Council, observed that the learned Judges of the Madras High Court could not confine the operation of section 439(4) to situations of an absolute acquittal of every offence. He emphasized that the statutory language was clear and left no room for a restrictive interpretation. The Privy Council rejected any qualification that limited the meaning of “acquittal” to a total discharge and affirmed that an acquittal of the primary charge, even when accompanied by conviction for a lesser offence, fell within the statutory definition. The Court consequently concluded that the words of the relevant subsections of the Criminal Procedure Code are plain and unambiguous, and that no justification exists for the narrower construction advocated by the learned Judges of the High Court.

The Court expressed agreement with the interpretation advanced by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that the term “acquittal” does not require a complete exoneration on all charges. The Court held that the word also embraces a situation in which an accused person is acquitted of a murder charge but is convicted of a lesser offence. Accordingly, the appellant was deemed to be entitled to a certificate under Article 134 (1) (a) as a matter of right, and the present appeal was to be dealt with as if it were instituted under that constitutional provision. The factual background of the appeal had been set out in the earlier portion of the judgment. The prosecution’s case relied principally, if not exclusively, on the dying declarations of the deceased. The first declaration was made to the mother, Chandrabhagabai, who arrived at the scene while the deceased was still lying there. When asked who was responsible, the deceased responded that her husband had inflicted the injuries and had set fire to her clothes. During cross‑examination it emerged that Shantabai and her husband, Pandu Gonda, were present at the time the statement was given. An allegation was raised that the deceased had implicated the appellant at the urging of Chandrabhagabai; the deceased rejected that suggestion. Both the trial court and the High Court accepted the validity of this declaration and found no indication that it had been prompted by the mother. Apart from that brief suggestion in cross‑examination, no material was presented to support a claim of prompting. A similar accusation, that the appellant set fire to the deceased, was made to Dr Javeri, the attending physician, when he asked how the burns had occurred. The deceased replied that her husband had poured kerosene on her and lit a match to her clothing. This statement was also accepted by the High Court, and the Court saw no reason to depart from that conclusion. The third dying declaration was recorded at about 5:30 p.m. by Magistrate Mhatre in the presence of Dr Javeri, who certified that the deceased was of sound mind when making the statement. The magistrate posed a series of detailed questions, noted the answers, and recorded that the deceased understood the questions and responded appropriately. Because the deceased’s hands were severely burnt, the record was neither signed nor marked with a thumb impression. The examination lasted roughly an hour. The trial court held that this declaration was given without any assistance or prompting from anyone, and according to Chandrabhagabai, she herself was not present at the time.

The trial judge subsequently affirmed that the dying declaration had been “freely given without the influence of anybody” and that it was not made under any personal bias. The High Court likewise accepted the correctness of the declaration and found no evidence on record that would diminish the findings of either the trial court or the High Court regarding its propriety. The appellant raised two principal arguments before this Court: first, that the appellant was not present at the scene of the incident; and second, that the death was a case of suicide. The Court found no cogent basis to conclude that the deceased intended to commit suicide, nor were there any circumstances presented that would support such a conclusion. Although it was acknowledged that the marital relationship between the husband and wife was strained to the extent that the husband had at times refused to provide maintenance or even food to the deceased, the evidence did not rise to a level that would substantiate a claim of self‑inflicted death. Consequently, the arguments of non‑presence and suicide were rejected.

The learned Trial Judge concluded that the dying declaration was made voluntarily, without any influence from any person and without being driven by personal feelings. The High Court also affirmed the correctness of that dying declaration and observed that the record contains no evidence that would in any way diminish the trial court’s or the High Court’s findings concerning the validity or propriety of the declaration. The matter before this Court presented two arguments. The first argument asserted that the appellant was not present at the scene of the incident. The second argument claimed that the death was a suicide. The Court found no persuasive grounds to support the proposition that the deceased intended to end her life, nor were there any circumstances shown in the material before us that would lead to such a conclusion. Although it may be true that the marital relationship between the husband and the wife was severely strained, with the husband reportedly refusing to support the deceased and even reluctant to provide her with food, the evidence does not indicate that the deceased became so agitated as to lose self‑control and deliberately take her own life. Additional points raised by counsel concerning the lack of kerosene oil on the appellant’s clothing or on the bedding were considered, but in the facts of this case those observations were deemed immaterial. Both the trial court and the High Court held that the deceased died from burns caused by a fire that was set on her clothing after the appellant allegedly sprinkled kerosene oil on her. This conclusion is supported by the dying declarations, and no substantial reasons have been advanced to challenge their correctness. The Court noted that a conviction based on such evidence has previously been upheld, referring to the authority in Khushal Rao v. State of Bombay. An alibi defence was attempted through the testimony of Gangaram Sitaram, a co‑worker of the appellant, but that testimony was rejected by both the trial court and the High Court. After reviewing that evidence, this Court finds no basis to depart from the lower courts’ assessment. Consequently, the appeal is dismissed. The Court acknowledges that the appellant possessed a right of appeal under Article 134(1)(a) of the Constitution, but regrets being unable to agree with the view that the conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code should be upheld. In appeals under Article 134(1)(a), the Court must re‑examine the evidential material afresh and does not follow the practice applied in special leave appeals under Article 136, where lower‑court findings are generally left undisturbed unless special circumstances warrant interference. Accordingly, the Court is of the opinion that the present case does not merit such interference.

In this case the Court found it unsafe to sustain the appellant’s conviction on the basis of the dying declarations alone, even though the law permits a conviction on a solitary dying declaration if the Court is fully satisfied that the statement presents a true account of the incident. The first dying declaration was recorded by the magistrate after the deceased, Sindhubai, addressed her own mother. It was understandable that the mother would inquire how her daughter had been burnt, but that circumstance does not automatically confirm that the daughter uttered exactly what the mother later asserted. Two questions therefore arose: first, whether the mother’s testimony was truthful; and second, whether the daughter’s statements were truthful. The mother, identified as PW‑1, admittedly had a strained relationship with her son‑in‑law and gave statements that were inconsistent with one another. The Sessions Judge, in paragraph 12 of his judgment, observed that numerous discrepancies existed in the mother’s evidence. For example, she claimed that when she repeatedly begged the accused not to beat her daughter, the result was adverse, yet she later denied the correctness of that statement when cross‑examined. She also alleged that she alone was removed from the room while the magistrate recorded the dying declaration in the hospital, implying that the accused and other persons remained inside. That claim was not corroborated by either Dr Javeri or the magistrate. Moreover, the mother professed ignorance that the deceased had made any statement to the police, although both the Sub‑Inspector and Dr Javeri testified that she had indeed made such a statement, making her claim of ignorance untenable. She further asserted that the accused arrived at the spot where Sindhubai lay injured about five minutes after her own arrival, and that he had poured kerosene on Sindhubai’s clothing and set it alight. Yet she said she neither questioned nor reprimanded him, nor did she utter any abusive words, actions that would ordinarily be expected of a mother who had seen her child severely burnt. The Court considered her explanation that she was “sorrow‑stricken” to lack credibility; while grief is natural, it would not have rendered her completely mute. According to her, Sindhubai’s dying declaration was made in the presence of Shantabai, a cousin of the accused, and Shantabai’s husband Pandu Genda, but the prosecution had not called these witnesses to corroborate her version.

The second dying declaration relied upon by the lower courts was the one given by the deceased to Dr Javeri, who had casually asked her how she had been injured. The Court expressed doubt about the propriety of such questioning, noting that the deceased was in a state of agony and that Dr Javeri’s inquiry bore no direct relevance to his duties as a medical practitioner. The Court observed that the questioning could not be said to provide any comfort to the patient; rather, it appeared to be idle curiosity on the part of a doctor who was not required to make a formal record of the statement in the medico‑legal register. Consequently, the Court considered it unsafe to rely on a statement obtained through such casual questioning, especially when the precise contents of the statement were unclear. The Court therefore concluded that neither of the dying declarations, taken in isolation, could be the sole foundation for confirming the appellant’s guilt.

The observation was made that the doctor’s casual question represented idle curiosity, which a medical professional in that position ought not to display. Consequently, the judgment held that it would be inappropriate to set a precedent by relying on a statement obtained through such a casual inquiry, especially when the doctor failed to make any formal record of the remark, even though the law did not require the entry to appear in the medico‑legal register. It was therefore considered safer not to place reliance on a statement that arose from an informal question posed by the doctor, particularly because the precise content of that statement remained unclear. The dying declaration that had been addressed to the police was disregarded by the Sessions Judge on the ground that it either had not been made at all or had not been made at the time when the Sub‑Inspector claimed to have obtained it from the deceased. The court further noted that no significance could be attached to that police declaration in any event, since it was recorded after the deceased had already given a formal dying declaration to the magistrate. In contrast, the declaration made to the magistrate had been recorded with due care. The relevant passages of that magistrate’s dying declaration were set out as follows: “I am suffering injuries of burning. My husband is my enemy. My husband has burnt me. Kerosene was poured over my body and a match stick was lighted. I was sleeping in the house. He, i.e., my husband, beat me and then burnt me. I shouted, but nobody came. He was ill treating me. He was harassing me and was causing me starvation for the last eight days. I had complained about it to Pandu Genda and Shanta Pandu. I did not send any information to my parents about the starvation.” The High Court had repeatedly observed that Sindhubai was sleeping when the accused set fire to her clothes. The panchnama, identified as Exhibit No. 14, which described the room, did not show any oil on the bedding nor any evidence that the bedding had been burnt. Although a number of other articles of clothing had been burnt, those items need not have ignited on their own. The absence of oil on the bedding conflicted with her statement that she was sleeping in the house at the time of the incident. Moreover, that statement was inconsistent with her later claim that her husband beat her and then set her on fire. Her assertion that no one responded to her cries because the house door was closed also conflicted with her earlier police statement in Exhibit 19, wherein she said that the accused fled after setting the fire. The probability analysis suggested that if the accused had set fire to her clothing, he would likely have fled immediately, anticipating that her screams would draw the attention of neighbours or passers‑by. Even if the door had remained latched for a period while the accused stayed inside, that circumstance did not explain why no one arrived at the scene. It was noted as remarkable that, in this case, no neighbour stepped forward to give testimony in support of the prosecution.

In this case, the Court observed that not a single neighbour had appeared to give testimony in support of the prosecution’s case. No material had been produced from any source outside the parties, and the investigation appeared to have uncovered nothing of substance. The record therefore lacked any evidence that could lend assurance to any circumstance alleged by the prosecution. The Court stated that such a vacuum of evidence could not simply be attributed to the accused’s influence over potential witnesses, nor could it be explained by a general reluctance of persons to speak the truth in the interests of justice, even if the accused had allegedly set fire to his own wife. The Court noted that the absence of witnesses might be explained by the fact that they either refused to affirm statements they knew to be false or did not consider the alleged facts to be true. It further recognized that it is always a difficult question to determine why a deceased person might accuse a particular individual of committing a crime, why a witness might depose against someone with whom he has no apparent enmity, or why the police, in the discharge of their public duty, might influence persons to make inaccurate statements. When courts find that an accusation or evidence does not appear to be true and that circumstances suggest police influence over witness testimony, they must approach such testimony with caution. The Court acknowledged that this same difficulty of assessing credibility and possible influence applied to the present matter.

The Court then turned to the relationship between the deceased wife and her husband, noting that the prosecution had advanced a narrative in which the husband not only starved his wife but also set fire to her clothes with the intention of causing her death. The Court held that such conduct could not be explained by ordinary domestic displeasure; rather, it would have to arise from an acute feeling of desperation and a desire not to continue living with his wife. The Court further observed that if the prosecution’s depiction of a deeply strained marital relationship were accepted, it would not be difficult to imagine that the wife might also have possessed strong motives to falsely charge her husband. The Court considered the possibility that the wife, fed up with her misery, might have attempted suicide and, when questioned, implicated her husband not to avoid liability for a suicide attempt but because she believed he was responsible for all her troubles, or possibly out of malice. The Court stressed that a dying declaration cannot be accepted merely because no obvious motive for false accusation can be identified; it may be believed only when there are no grounds for doubting its truth. In addition to the doubts raised regarding the credibility of the dying declaration, the Court noted that other circumstances in the case further contributed to uncertainty about the truth of the accusations made in that declaration.

The panchnama of the room recorded that a few shirts, some old trousers, and fragments of two sarees lay near the southern wall in a wet and partially burnt condition, and it offered no explanation as to why such garments should have been burned. The report observed that there was no logical reason for the accused to have poured kerosene oil on these items, even if they had been huddled near the wall. It further noted that even if Sindhubai had fallen onto the clothes that were lying there, the impact might have set fire to a portion of them but would not have caused the garments to become wet. The document made no suggestion that anyone had poured water over the burnt clothes in an attempt to extinguish a fire, because no such water was reported to have been present. In fact, Ranganath Sitaram, identified as PW 6 and one of the Panchayat members, testified that the burnt clothes emitted the odor of rock oil. The panchnama also described a black spot on the eastern wall, situated two feet above the floor, which it said resulted from the burning of the clothes and was a recent mark. No explanation was given for the existence of that mark, and the record indicated that Sindhubai could not have stood opposite the wall; even if she had, the expected result would have been a line of burn marks along the length of her body rather than a single spot. These two observations could be reconciled only if someone had deliberately set fire to the clothes and left some of them burning beside the wall for a short time. The appellant or whoever ignited the clothes would not have lingered, because the likely course would have been a rapid exit after dousing Sindhubai with kerosene and igniting her garments. Sindhubai’s dying declaration made no reference to any such conduct by the accused. Consequently, the only inference that could be drawn was that she herself had set fire to her own clothing, though the motive for doing so remained unknown. According to her mother’s statement, Sindhubai had returned to her house with her daughter after taking a mid‑day meal at her mother’s home and had sent the child back with Usha. She had brought the child, expecting her husband to arrive after his meal at his cousin’s place, a conduct described as unusual because the child normally remained with the maternal grandmother during daylight hours, perhaps indicating that the accused harbored some aversion toward the child. This unusual behaviour could be interpreted as consistent with an intention to commit suicide; she may have brought the child to embrace it one last time before sending it back. Moreover, her decision to run toward the house of Shantabai, her husband’s cousin, rather than toward her own mother’s house also appeared unnatural. While it is possible that extreme distress can impair logical thinking, it is generally expected that a person in trouble would instinctively seek out relatives who are likely to be sympathetic and supportive.

In this case, the Court noted that the mother’s statement indicated that the path leading to her own residence differed from the route that led to Shantabai’s house. The Court considered the possibility that the accused did not follow the expected route to his cousin’s dwelling and instead left for his place of employment from his cousin’s location. The incident occurred on a festival day, and the Court observed that Sindhubai may have felt that this conduct caused her clothing to catch fire, prompting her to run toward Shantabai’s house where she possibly anticipated her husband’s presence. The Court recorded that the time of the incident was reported to be between 1.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m., but the evidence suggested that the event most likely happened at around three o’clock in the afternoon. According to the mother, she received information about the time of the incident at approximately three forty‑five p.m., and the police were informed at that same time. The ambulance subsequently transported Sindhubai to the hospital at four fifteen p.m. The Court further observed that the accused was not expected to be at his own house at three p.m.

The Court explained that the learned judges of the High Court had rejected the defence claim that the accused was working at the house of Mulchand Rajmal from about two p.m. and that he left for his home after receiving a message from a person named Daga. The Court pointed out that Daga had not been examined, that the Munim of the house‑owner had not been examined, and that the register of workers had not been produced. The prosecution, however, established that the accused habitually went to work at seven a.m., returned at twelve noon, resumed work again at two p.m., and finally came back home at six p.m., as deposed to by Chandrabhaga, the mother of the deceased. Consequently, the Court found no reasonable basis to doubt that the accused was performing his duties at two p.m. on the day of the incident, as also corroborated by Sindhubai’s own statement to the police that, after the alleged burning, the accused fled to his work. If the time of the incident is measured from the moment the police were notified at three forty‑five p.m., the event would have occurred sometime between three and three thirty p.m., a period during which the accused could not have been at his house. The Court concluded that the attempt to place the incident at one thirty p.m. appeared to have been made to avoid this temporal inconsistency. Moreover, the Court reasoned that the incident could not have happened before two p.m., because such an early occurrence would have resulted in a significantly delayed police report, and it would have been unlikely for Sindhubai to remain in the room for an extended period or for the witnesses who saw her running toward Shantabai’s house and falling there to refrain from promptly informing the authorities. Finally, the mother’s testimony that Sindhubai had repeatedly told her she would sever her ties with the accused and earn her own livelihood if the ill‑treatment continued supported the view that Sindhubai was genuinely exhausted with her marital situation.

In this case, the Court observed that Sindhubai had been living with the accused and that the strain of that co‑habitation might have driven her to attempt suicide. The Court noted that, if Sindhubai had not actually been asleep when the kerosene oil was poured over her, it would be unreasonable to assume that she would not have tried to escape. Moreover, the possibility that the accused could have succeeded in setting fire to her clothing during a struggle was considered remote; even if he had managed to ignite the kerosene‑soaked garments, it was uncertain whether he himself would not have been singed or even burned. These considerations led the Court to doubt the reliability of the dying declaration and to conclude that the appellant’s conviction, which rested solely on that declaration, ought not to be upheld.

The Court then referred to the version of events recorded in the High Court judgment. According to that judgment, the alleged incident occurred sometime after 1.30 p.m.; the accused allegedly entered the room from inside, poured a large quantity of kerosene oil onto Sindhubai while she was sleeping, allowed the oil to soak her clothes, and before she could rise he supposedly searched for a match, lit it, and set her clothes on fire. The Court found that such a narrative could not be reconciled with the dying declaration taken by the Magistrate. The declaration initially recorded that Sindhubai was sleeping at the time of the incident, but when asked the next question she stated that her husband beat her and then burned her. If the burning had followed the beating, there was no logical way that kerosene oil could have been poured on her while she was asleep, and no motive for such conduct was offered. The Magistrate, who had attempted to clear up these doubtful points, failed to elicit any explanation for why the alleged deed was committed.

Further, the Court highlighted the implausibility of the accused having to search for a matchbox. If the accused intended to set fire to his wife, he would presumably have had a matchbox readily available; any delay caused by searching for one would have given Sindhubai sufficient time to flee. The Court also considered Sindhubai’s reluctance to disclose her husband’s name. It held that such aversion was not necessarily the result of affection for her husband but rather a customary practice of a Hindu married woman, and that this reluctance did not guarantee the truth of her subsequent accusation against her husband. Finally, the Court rejected the High Court’s observation that “the accused was in the house when the incident took place,” noting that no evidence had been presented to substantiate that factual claim. The High Court had, however, already concluded—based on the dying declaration—that the accused was responsible for the murder before addressing the defence’s evidence.

The Court observed that defence evidence could not be evaluated only after a final finding of guilt, because such an approach would render the defence evidence useless. Accordingly, the Court held that the defence material must be taken into account before the Court arrives at any final conclusion on the case. The Court noted that the conduct of the accused, who travelled in the same ambulance that was used to transport the deceased and who remained in the hospital thereafter, was favourable to the accused and adverse to the prosecution’s case. The accused had also declared in his examination that he had paid the charges for the ambulance. These facts, the Court said, should be considered as part of the overall assessment of the evidence rather than being ignored after a preliminary finding.

The Court further remarked that the judges who heard the appeal should not have entertained it at the moment they were convinced that the accused had been wrongly acquitted of the murder charge. The judges, according to the Court, had asked the Government Pleader to examine the records to determine whether the State wished to file an appeal against the acquittal under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The Government did indeed file such an appeal, although it was unclear whether this action resulted from the Government Pleader’s suggestion. The Court expressed that, given these circumstances, it would have been a better exercise of discretion for the appeal against the acquittal not to have been heard by the same bench that had effectively prompted the filing of the Government’s appeal, describing such a suggestion as highly unusual. Consequently, the Court concluded that the prosecution had not satisfactorily proved that the appellant had murdered his wife by setting fire to her clothes. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeal, set aside the order of the lower court and acquitted the appellant of the offence. However, in accordance with the view of the majority of the judges, the appeal was dismissed.