CRL A/161/2024 of AMALA @ IHTAYAKAMALAM Vs THE STATE REP.BY on 30 September 2026

COMMON JUDGMENT

(Judgment of the Court was made by N.Sathish Kumar, J.) Aggrieved over the judgment of conviction and sentence, dated 12.09.2023 made in S.C.No.154 of 2016 on the file of the learned II Additional District and Sessions Judge, Vellore District at Ranipet all the accused have preferred separate criminal appeals. The appellants/ accused were convicted and sentenced by the Trial Court as follows: Accused Conviction Sentence A1 and A2 Sections 302 r/w 34 IPC Each to undergo Life imprisonment with fine of Rs.10,000/- each, in default to undergo further six months simple imprisonment; Section 201 r/w 302 IPC Each to undergo 7 years rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- each, in default to undergo further three months simple imprisonment; These sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

2. The brief facts of the prosecution case is as follows:

2.1. The deceased and A2 are husband and wife, A2 had developed illegal intimacy with A1, who is the cousin of the deceased, which was objected and questioned by the deceased, thereby both A1 and A2 decided to eliminate the deceased and accordingly, on 24.01.2016, while the deceased was having liquor near the J.J. Nagar drinking water well, both accused repeatedly attacked the deceased with stone on his head, strangulated him and caused death to the deceased. Thereafter, they had thrown the body of the deceased in the nearby well. On 26.01.2026, P.W.1, who is the brother of the deceased, on hearing the news from P.W.2 that the body of the deceased was found in a well, went there and found that the deceased was his brother, and thereafter, he immediately lodged a complaint (Ex.P.1) before the Sub-Inspector of Police (P.W.22), SIPCOT Police Station at 10:00 PM on the same day. P.W.22 received the complaint, registered the FIR (Ex.P.10) in Crime No.25 of 2016, for the offence under Section 302 IPC and thereafter, forwarded the FIR to the Court and a copy to the Investigation Officer (P.W.24). 2.2 P.W.24 – Investigation Officer took up the case for investigation and went to the place of occurrence on 26.01.2016 at about 11:00 PM, recorded the statements from P.W.1 and P.W.2 and sent the body of the deceased to Vellore Government Hospital. On 27.01.2026 at about 06:00 AM, P.W.24 again went to the place of occurrence, prepared the Observation Mahazar (Ex.P.2), Rough Sketch (Ex.P.16) and seized material objects, broken glass bangles (M.O.3) under Ex.P.3, Hero Splendor i Smart two wheeler bearing Registration No.TN-73-J-4195 (M.O.7) under Ex.P.4 and blood stained earth (M.O.1) and non-blood stained earth (M.O.2) under Ex.P.5 in the presence of P.W.1 and one Anandhan. After recording the statements of other witnesses, P.W.24 went to the Vellore Government Hospital Mortuary, conducted inquest over the dead body and prepared Inquest Report (Ex.P.17) and gave a requisition letter (Ex.P.18) to conduct autopsy. 2.3 P.W.19 – Medical Officer attached to the Vellore Government

College and Hospital had conducted autopsy and noted the following injuries:-

1) Reddish brown contused abrasions:

(a) 3.5 x 1.8 cm on the left side of the forehead; (b) 4.8 x 2.5 cm on the right side cheek;

(c) 2.5 x 2.8 cm on the right half of the nose; (d) 2.5 x 1.8 cm on the right side of the chin; (e) multiple small abrasions over an area of 15.5 x 10.5 cm on the right knee; (f) multiple small abrasions over an area of 13.5 x 9.8 cam on the left knee.

2) Right half of the head and upper half of right side of the face were crushed, depressed and deformed; evidence of bleeding from both ears and exteriorisation of crushed brain matter through left ear were present; irregular contused lacerations:

(a) 7.9 x 5.8 x 1.5 cm on the right side of the back of the head; (b) 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.5 cm on the left side of the head;

(c) 3.2 x 2.8 x 1.2 cm on the top of the head (d) 5.5 x 4.6 x 1.5 cm on the top of the head just behind wound no.2(c); margins and surrounding soft tissues were ragged, contused. and opined that the deceased would have died of Crush injury to the Head and issued Postmortem Certificate (Ex.P.6). P.W.19 examined the viscera and issued viscera report (Ex.P.7), opining that viscera contains ethyl alcohol. 2.4 Later in continuation of the investigation, on 27.01.2016 at about 12:30 PM, P.W.24 arrested A1 and recorded his voluntary confession statement and the admitted portion of the confession statement of A1 is marked as Ex.P.11 and seized a Hero Splender Pro two wheeler (M.O.4) under mahazar Ex.P.12 and blood stained shirt (M.O.6) under Ex.P.15. Thereafter on the same day, P.W.24 also arrested A2 and recorded her voluntary confession statement and the admitted portion of the confession statement of A2 is marked as Ex.P.13 and seized blood stained stone around 6.5 kilograms (M.O.5) under mahazar Ex.P.14 and sent the material objects to the Forensic Department. Thereafter, the accused were produced before the Judicial Magistrate concerned and remanded to judicial custody. P.W.20 is the forensic expert, who examined the material objects and issued the Biology and Serology reports marked as Ex.P.8 and Ex.P.9. After obtaining the medical report and forensic report, all the collected materials were sent to Court and thereafter, P.W.24 finally laid the final report against the accused under sections 302 r/w 34, 201 r/w 302 of IPC. 2.5 To prove the case, the prosecution has examined as many as 24 witnesses, namely P.W.1 to P.W.24 and marked 18 documents, namely Ex.P.1 to Ex.P.18 and produced 10 material objects, M.O.1 to M.O.10. 2.6 On completion of the evidence on the side of the prosecution, the accused were questioned under section 313(1)(a) Cr.P.C. as to the incriminating circumstances found against them in the evidence adduced by the prosecution witnesses. They denied all the incriminating circumstances as false. On the side of the defence, no evidence was recorded and no documents were marked. 2.7 The Trial Court, after appreciating the oral and documentary evidence on record, given much importance to the confession of the accused and recovery of the materials and by judgment dated 12.09.2023, found all the accused guilty of the offences and convicted and sentenced them to undergo imprisonment as stated above. Challenging the same, these criminal appeals have been preferred.

3. The learned counsels appearing for appellants/ accused submitted that the circumstances relied on by the prosecution has not been established and though the motive spoken by the family members about the illegal intimacy between the wife of the deceased/ A2 and A1, absolutely there is no evidence to show the same and further there is no evidence to show that the deceased and accused were seen alive together at the relevant point of time. That apart, the alleged last seen theory relied by the Trial Court is also highly improbable and in fact, P.W.13 had never stated in his evidence, he had seen the accused and the deceased together at the relevant point of time, therefore this evidence itself is not sufficient to convict the accused. Further the arrest and recovery relied upon by the Trial Court also cannot be relied upon for the simple reason that, on the date of complaint itself, A1 and A2 were arrested, as per the evidence of P.W.1, therefore so called arrest and subsequent recovery on 27.01.2016 is a make belief story. Hence, he prays to acquit the accused.

4. Per contra, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor appearing for the respondent on instructions submitted that, based on the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution, the Trial Court has analysed all the evidences and come to a conclusion that the accused are guilt of the offence and has rightly convicted the accused. Therefore, seeks for dismissal of these criminal appeals.

5. We have considered the submissions made on both sides and perused the entire materials available on record. The point that arises for consideration in this appeal is whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond all reasonable doubts?

6. When the case is based on circumstantial evidence, each one of the circumstances has to be established, and there should not be any gap among the circumstances. As held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the landmark case of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116, the cumulative effect of the proved circumstances must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except the guilt of the accused. Even if one link of the chain gets snapped, a conviction cannot be sustained (See Hanumant v. State of M.P., 1952 SCR 1091). In the case in hand, the circumstances which are relied upon by the prosecution are motive, last seen theory, arrest of the accused and recovery of material objects.

7. As far as the motive is concerned, P.W.1, P.W.4, P.W.5, P.W.7 and P.W.8 who are the close relatives of the deceased and accused had spoken that there was illegal intimacy between A1 and A2. Their evidence clearly establishes that there is some relationship between A1 and A2, therefore the motive alone has been clearly established by the record.

8. As far as the other circumstantial evidences are concerned, the chain of events needs to be so established that the Court has no option but to come to one and only one conclusion i.e., the guilt of the accused person. If an iota of doubt creeps in at any stage in the sequence of events, the benefit thereof should flow to the accused. Mere suspicion alone, irrespective of the fact that it is very strong, cannot be a substitute for a proof. The chain of circumstances

must be so complete that they lead to only one conclusion that is the guilt of the accused.

9. On perusal of the entire evidence, except the one circumstance of motive, there were no other circumstances available against the accused. Though the prosecution has relied upon the evidence of P.W.13 to show that both accused were seen together in panic manner near the place of occurrence, however the evidence of P.W.13 does not prove any fact that the accused and deceased were seen together on the date of occurrence (or) prior to the occurrence (or) after the occurrence. The evidence of P.W.13 is silent about the date, when he had allegedly seen both accused, therefore in the absence of any evidence to show that these accused were present in the place of occurrence, prior to the occurrence (or) after the occurrence, no inference can be drawn, merely on the basis of such evidence.

10. Further to believe the last seen theory, it must be established by the prosecution that accused and the deceased were seen together alive at the relevant point of time, before the dead body was recovered. Further, it is relevant to note that to complete the chain of the last seen theory, the time gap between the point of time when accused and deceased were seen alive together and recovery of the dead body must be short and there should not be too much of gap. Whereas the evidence of P.W.13 does not state that the deceased was also present at the place of occurrence together with accused and further his evidence does not indicate about when he had seen the accused, whether it is before the occurrence (or) after the occurrence. Therefore, the evidence of P.W.13 will not help the prosecution in proving the last seen theory.

11. The other circumstances relied on by the prosecution is the arrest of the accused and recovery of material objects. It is the evidence of P.W.24 – Investigation Officer that A1 was arrested on 27.01.2016 at about 12:30 PM and A2 was arrested at about 02:15 PM on the same day, whereas the evidence of P.W.1 clearly shows that on the date of complaint (i.e.,) on 26.01.2016 itself both accused were arrested. Therefore the theory of arrest on the next day and so called recovery is also assumed to be insignificance.

12. Further, there are no other materials to show that the accused have committed an offence, except one circumstances regarding alleged seizure of a blood stained stone (M.O.5) based on the voluntary confession statement of A2, which is said to have contained the blood group of ‘A’. However, it is the case of the prosecution that the deceased used to have liquor at the same place and the dead body of the deceased was recovered from the well, hence the possibility of the accused falling on the stone, after consuming of liquor also cannot be ruled out.

13. For the aforesaid reasons, the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution has not clinchingly established the guild of the accused. Therefore, we are of the view that the prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond all reasonable doubt and hence, we are inclined to extend the benefit of doubt to all the accused/appellants herein.

14. In the light of the above, these criminal appeals are allowed and the judgment dated 12.09.2023 made in S.C.No.154 of 2016 on the file of the learned II Additional District and Sessions Judge, Vellore District at Ranipet is hereby set aside and the accused/appellants herein are acquitted of the charges levelled against them and are directed to be set at liberty forthwith, unless their detention is required in connection with any other lawful case. Fine amount, if any, paid by the appellants, shall be refunded to them. Bail bonds executed by the appellants shall stand discharged. (N.S.K.,J.) (K.R.S.,J.) 30-09-2026 Index: Yes/No Speaking/Non-speaking order Neutral Citation: Yes/No stn

To

1. The II Additional District and Session Judge, Vellore at Ranipet, Vellore District.

2. The Circle Inspector Of Police, SIPCOT Police Station, SIPCOT, Ranipet District, (Crime No.25/2016)

3. The Public Prosecutor, Madras High Court, Chennai

N.SATHISH KUMAR, J. AND K.RAJASEKAR, J. stn Crl.A.Nos.161 of 2024 & 421 of 2025 30-09-2026