Rajinder Kumar and Another vs The State of Punjab

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 182 of 1961

Decision Date: 4 May 1962

Coram: K.C. Das Gupta, J.L. Kapur, Raghubar Dayal

In the matter of Rajinder Kumar and another versus the State of Punjab, decided on 4 May 1962, the Supreme Court of India, constituted by Justices K C Das Gupta, J L Kapur and Raghubar Dayal, rendered its judgment. The petitioners were Rajinder Kumar and his son, while the respondent was the State of Punjab. The citation for this decision is 1966 AIR 1322 and 1963 SCR (3) 281, and the relevant statutory provisions invoked were sections 302, 201 and 802 of the Indian Penal Code (Act 45 of 1860). The headnote recorded that the first appellant was convicted under section 302 for the murder of a three‑and‑a‑half‑year‑old boy identified as “T” and was sentenced to death, and that his father, the second appellant, was convicted under section 201 for concealing the dead body.

The prosecution case alleged that on 5 January 1961, between 3 minutes 30 seconds past 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., the child T was present in the house of the appellants while the other occupants were away; during that interval the first appellant allegedly killed T by forcing a cloth into the child’s mouth and subsequently placed the body in the garage of their house. The prosecution further contended that on the same night the first appellant, together with his father, transferred the body into a gunny bag and buried it within the compound of the house. Evidentiary material indicated that a few days prior to 5 January 1961, relations between the first appellant and the father of T had become strained because the first appellant had spoken to T’s mother in a manner that displeased her husband, who then asked the first appellant to cease his visits. As a result, T, who had previously been a frequent visitor, stopped visiting for several days but resumed his visits three or four days before the incident. On the day of the alleged murder, T was last seen alive at approximately 3 minutes 30 seconds past 3 p.m. playing in the first appellant’s house.

Both the trial court and the Punjab High Court found that the evidence fully established the prosecution’s case, leading to the convictions described above. On appeal, the appellants argued that the findings of the lower courts were not justified and that no reasonable motive for the homicide had been proved. The Supreme Court held that the appellants were rightly convicted. It observed that although the motive for the murder did not emerge from the evidence, the absence of a proven motive could not be used to doubt the conclusion that was clearly supported by the surrounding circumstances. The Court explained that motive is a relevant fact of which evidence may be given, and that the lack of motive is itself a relevant circumstance that must be considered alongside other evidential factors. The Court further noted that it is often the case that only the perpetrator knows the true motive behind his act.

The case was heard under criminal appellate jurisdiction as Criminal Appeal No. 182 of 1961, filed by special leave from the judgment and order dated 7 September 1961 of the Punjab High Court, Chandigarh.

In this case the Court recorded that the matter before it was Criminal Appeal No 595 of 1961 together with Murder Reference No 56 of 1961. Counsel for the appellants appeared on behalf of the accused, and counsel for the respondent appeared for the State. The judgment was delivered on 4 May 1962. The Court noted that the deceased was a three‑and‑a‑half‑year‑old boy named Tonny, the son of Ravindernath Goyal. Tonny was last seen alive on 5 January 1961. A month later, on 5 February 1961, his dead body was discovered buried in the compound of his neighbour Jagdish Chander and the neighbour’s son Rajinder Kumar. The two accused, Jagdish Chander and Rajinder Kumar, were a father and son. The body was found inside a gunny bag that also contained a blood‑stained piece of cloth placed in the mouth and a blood‑stained towel. When the cloth was removed, the tongue was observed to have been pushed backward toward the left side of the throat. The Civil Surgeon of Bhatinda, who performed the post‑mortem examination, gave an opinion that the child had died of asphyxia caused by suffocation resulting from the cloth packed in his mouth. On the basis of this evidence Rajinder Kumar was convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for murder and sentenced to death, while his father Jagdish Chander was convicted under section 201 of the Indian Penal Code for concealing the dead body.

The prosecution case was that on the afternoon of 5 January 1961, between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., Tonny was present in the house of Jagdish Chander while Rajinder Kumar and the other occupants of the house were absent. During that interval Rajinder Kumar allegedly killed Tonny by stuffing a cloth into his mouth, placed the body in the garage of the house, and that same night he and his father buried the body in the neighbour’s compound after putting it in a gunny bag. For the whole month after the child’s disappearance, his parents and grandfather made frantic but unsuccessful attempts to locate him. The prosecution further stated that the two accused pretended to assist in the search for the missing boy, thereby creating a false impression of cooperation. The prosecution’s narrative was supported by several circumstances. First, in the days leading up to 5 January 1961, relations between Rajinder Kumar and Tonny’s father, Ravinder Kumar, had become strained because Rajinder Kumar had spoken to Tonny’s mother in a manner that her husband disapproved of, leading Ravinder Kumar to ask Rajinder Kumar to cease his visits to their house. Following this request Tonny, who used to visit Rajinder Kumar frequently and called him “uncle,” stopped visiting for a few days. However, three or four days before 5 January 1961, Tonny resumed his visits because Rajinder Kumar had begun giving him sugar drops. The second point mentioned by the prosecution was that Tonny was …

The child was last seen alive at approximately three‑thirty in the afternoon inside Rajinder’s house, where he was playing with Rajinder. At that moment Rajinder’s wife, his father, his sister and the household servant Bhagat Ram were not present; Bhagat Ram had actually been sent out by Rajinder at about two‑thirty in the afternoon. Later, at around four o’clock in the evening, Tonny’s mother Sudha prepared tea and called for her son, but receiving no answer she turned to Rajinder Kumar—whom she had observed returning from the direction of the garage—and asked him where Tonny might be. Rajinder replied that Tonny had gone with his wife to the residence of Jagdish Goyal. Immediately thereafter Rajinder’s wife returned to the house and, contradicting her husband’s statement, told Sudha that Tonny had not accompanied her but had instead been playing with her husband. Sudha then posed the question again to Rajinder, who suggested that Tonny might have gone to Baba’s shop to fetch a toast.

At the same time Bhagat Ram came back on his bicycle and intended to store it in the garage, but when he found Rajinder looking into the garage he asked Rajinder to unlock it. Rajinder, however, instructed Bhagat Ram to keep the bicycle inside the house, explaining that he had placed some important articles in the garage and therefore would not open the lock. That night Bhagat Ram slept in the kitchen. Rajinder left the house after four o’clock, claiming to join the search for Tonny, and only returned at midnight. Upon his return he turned on the kitchen light where Bhagat Ram was lying and asked why he had not gone to sleep.

Approximately two o’clock in the morning, when Bhagat Ram rose to answer a call of nature, he observed Rajinder and his father standing in front of the garage engaged in conversation; they remained silent when he drew near. Rajinder stayed outside the house for about another two hours, during which time Bhagat Ram remained awake. On January 9, Rajinder encountered Raj Kumar, a primary‑school teacher, on a bridge in Mohalla Jori Bhatia and requested his assistance in disposing of a dead body, after admitting that he had murdered the child. Rajinder was interrogated by the police on 3 February and 4 February, and finally on 5 February, when the police escorted him to his own residence, he gave a statement that he had buried the child’s body six to seven feet from the main gate on the right side, wrapped in a gunny bag near a Gul Mohar tree. He then pointed to a spot, ordered a trench about four feet deep to be dug, and the child’s body was recovered there inside a gunny bag together with the child’s own garments and a banian placed in his mouth. There was also a towel which

The towel found inside the gunny bag was identified by Bhagat Ram as belonging to the accused Rajinder Kumar. Human blood was discovered on the banian‑towel, on the gunny bag, and also on the child’s garments that were recovered with the body. Both of the accused entered pleas of not guilty and argued that they had been wrongly implicated on the basis of unfounded suspicion. The Trial Court, as well as the High Court, held that all fourteen circumstances previously described were fully proved by the evidence. Counsel appearing on behalf of both appellants, Mr Chari, did not dispute that, if these circumstances were established, they would substantiate the conclusions reached by the lower courts. Nevertheless, he contended that the High Court erred in finding at least some of those circumstances to be proved. The Court observed that even if only the second, fifth and twelfth of the listed circumstances were proved, they would, by themselves, be sufficient to support the inference that Rajinder Kumar murdered the child Tonny. The facts were that Tonny was last seen with the accused at 3.30 p.m. on the 5th of the month, that the dead body was later discovered buried in the accused’s own house, a fact known to the accused, and that at about 4 p.m. on the same day the accused gave contradictory statements regarding Tonny’s whereabouts. These three facts could not be reasonably explained by any hypothesis other than that the accused killed the child between 3.30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on that day and subsequently buried the body.

Mr Mari suggested an alternative theory that Tonny might have been killed elsewhere by an unknown person who then managed to bring the body to the accused’s house and bury it there. The Court found this suggestion to be untenable and not worthy of serious consideration. It questioned why an unknown killer would undertake the risky act of transporting a corpse to the accused’s compound, exposing himself to the possibility of being discovered before completing the burial. Moreover, the evidence established beyond doubt that the burial site was known to Rajinder Kumar and that he himself excavated the ground at the precise location where the body was recovered. Mr Chari then drew the Court’s attention to the testimony of prosecution witness No 5, Mrs Gurdeep Kaur Girin, who stated that police had visited the accused’s house two days before the body was found and that pits had been dug on that occasion with Rajinder present. All police officers denied any such digging prior to the 5th. The Court concluded that Mrs Gurdeep Kaur, while giving evidence in June 1961, likely erred concerning the date of the observed digging. Even if her statement were taken as correct, it would not demonstrate that Rajinder was unaware of the burial place; at most it would show that he continued to conceal that knowledge. The Court therefore held that the cited circumstances were sufficient to sustain the conviction of Rajinder Kumar under the relevant provision.

In the opinion of the Court, even if the statement that had been relied upon by the learned counsel was accurate, it would not demonstrate that Rajinder was unaware of the place where the dead body had been kept. At most, the statement would merely indicate that he chose to remain silent about the location. The learned counsel also pointed out that the police had visited the appellant’s house many times but had failed to notice that the ground was disturbed. The Court expressed no surprise at this observation. It noted that even seasoned police officers, who had entertained suspicions against the accused from the very beginning of the investigation, would not ordinarily expect a defendant to act so boldly as to bury a dead body inside the compound of his own residence. Consequently, the fact that the police did not discover any disturbance of the soil before the fifth of February could not be taken as a basis for the counsel’s suggestion that the body had been brought to the house from elsewhere shortly before that date. In the Court’s view, the few circumstances that had already been discussed were sufficient on their own to sustain the conviction of Rajinder Kumar under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Moreover, the Court observed that nothing had been presented which would justify overturning the findings of the lower courts that the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth circumstances mentioned in the record had also been established beyond doubt.

The Court also addressed the argument raised by Mr Chari that Bhagat Ram had been taken into police custody on 31 January and that it was curious his statement had not been recorded before 5 February. The High Court had accepted the testimony of Inspector Ram Nath Paras that Bhagat Ram was not available at Patiala for recording his statement until 7 February 1961, and the Court found no reason to reassess that evidence. Regarding the criticism levelled by Mr Chari against the prosecution witnesses Raj Kumar and Mahabir Dayal, who were relied upon to prove the tenth circumstance – namely, an extra‑judicial confession by Rajinder – the Court found the criticism more plausible. Although those two witnesses were described as persons of questionable character who might be capable of giving false testimony if the police required it, the Court could not understand why the police would feel compelled to secure false statements from them when the discovery of the dead body in the appellant’s compound already presented practically conclusive evidence. Accordingly, the Court regarded the narrative of an extra‑judicial confession, as recounted by Raj Kumar and corroborated by Mahabir Dayal, as likely to be true, but deemed it unnecessary to pursue the matter further because the prosecution did not need the tenth circumstance to prove its case. The Court noted that the motive that prompted Rajinder Kumar to commit the heinous act remained unclear; even the strained relations between Tonny’s father Ravinder and Rajinder, which had been mentioned, did not sufficiently explain the appellant’s actions.

In this case, the Court observed that the fact that Rajinder’s father had asked him to stop his visits, as noted in the first circumstance, did not by itself explain Rajinder’s subsequent conduct. The Court further stated that even if the evidence of strained relations between the father and son had not been presented, such an omission could not be a basis for doubting the other circumstances that had been adduced, nor could it justify any hesitation in drawing the inevitable conclusion from those circumstances. The Court explained that the motive behind a crime is a relevant fact that may be proved, but that the absence of a motive is likewise a circumstance that must be taken into account when assessing the evidence. It was held that the various circumstances previously mentioned, which proved the guilt of the accused Rajinder, were not weakened by the fact that a motive had not been established. The Court noted that it often happens that only the perpetrator himself knows what prompted him to act, and that this case appeared to be of that nature. Accordingly, the Court affirmed that Rajinder Kumar had been rightfully convicted under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to death. Regarding the case against Jagdish Chander, the Court found it to rest on the testimony of Bhagat Ram, a seventeen‑year‑old youth who had entered the service of the accused about five or six months before January 1961 and who was a servant in the house on 5 January. Bhagat Ram testified that at about nine or ten p.m. on that day he asked for the garage key in order to retrieve bedding, but that the appellant Jagdish said he would do it himself and actually removed the bedding. He further recounted that at about two o’clock he rose to fetch water, saw Rajinder and his father walking in front of the garage and conversing, and remained silent as he left; he added that he could not sleep for a couple of hours thereafter and that during that period both the father and his son, as well as Jagdish, stayed outside the house. The Court stated that there was no reason to disturb the lower courts’ view that Bhagat Ram’s evidence should be accepted. Once that testimony was accepted, the conduct of Jagdish, as proved by it, could not be explained by any reasonable hypothesis other than the inference that, after learning that Rajinder had murdered Tonny, Jagdish assisted Rajinder in concealing the dead body by burying it underground. Counsel for the respondent, Mr Chari, suggested that Rajinder might have told his father that the boy had died accidentally from an electric shock, and the learned counsel highlighted that an electric wire fashioned into a ring had been found on the thumb of the dead body. However, the medical examination showed that the wire bore no relation to the boy’s death. Mr Chari conceded this point but nevertheless argued that Rajinder might still have falsely told his father that the death was due to electrocution.

In the instant case, it was submitted that Rajinder had alleged to his father that the boy’s death resulted from electrocution. The argument that this explanation might have some force was rejected because a blood‑stained banian had been discovered stuffed in the boy’s mouth and a blood‑stained towel had also been found inside the gunny bag. These facts eliminated any possibility that Jagdish could have been misinformed by his son regarding the manner in which Tonny died. The record shows that on 5 January 1961 Jagdish became aware that an offence—the murder of Tonny—had been committed. After acquiring this knowledge, he caused certain pieces of evidence relating to the commission of that offence to disappear, with the intention of shielding the actual offender from legal punishment. The circumstances disclosed in the evidence therefore established the prosecution’s case that Jagdish had acted to conceal the crime. Accordingly, the conviction of Jagdish under section 204 of the Indian Penal Code was held to be correct, and the sentence imposed on him was deemed proper. For these reasons, the appeal was dismissed.