Hon'ble Mr. Justice N.V. Ramana
NONREPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1990 OF 2012
SADAYAPPAN @ GANESAN …APPELLANT
VERSUS
STATE, REPRESENTED BY …RESPONDENT
INSPECTOR OF POLICE
J U D G M E N T
N.V. RAMANA, J.
1. This appeal is directed against the Judgment dated
13th December, 2011 passed by the High Court of
Judicature at Madras in Criminal Appeal No. 346 of 2011
whereby the Division Bench of the High Court dismissed
the appeal preferred by the appellant herein and upheld
his conviction and sentence passed by the Trial Court for
the offence punishable under Section 302 read with
Section 34, IPC.
2. Prosecution case in brief is that Selvam @ Thangaraj
(deceased), Karuppusamy (A1) and Sadayappan @
Ganesan (A2/appellant herein) were neighbouring
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agricultural land owners in the village of Kandavayal who
used to go together for hunting of rabbits in the nearby
forest area. Around 15 years prior to the incident, the
deceased Thangaraj had negotiated to buy some
agricultural land from A1 and paid him Rs. 30,000/
towards the sale value and took possession of the said
land. However, despite repeated requests, A1 had never
come forward for registering the sale deed in favour of the
deceased. Owing to this, A1 and the deceased developed
animosity towards each other. A2—appellant herein is the
adjacent landowner who always supported A1 in avoiding
registration of the sale deed. Despite animosity against
the deceased, A1 and A2 kept on going to the forest for
hunting along with him. On May 27, 2008 at about 11
p.m., both A1 and A2 went to the house of deceased and
insisted that he accompany them to the fields/forest.
Eventually, the deceased went with them hesitatingly.
When the deceased did not return home till 4 am in the
morning, his wife—Rajammal (PW1) sent one Palanisamy
(PW2—brother of the deceased) and Govindarajan (PW3—
nephew of the deceased) to search for her husband. PWs
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2 and 3, while searching for the deceased, found his dead
body near the fields with bleeding injuries. They
immediately rushed to PW1 and informed her of the
same.
3. On a complaint given by PW1, the SubInspector of
Police (PW14) at Sirumugai Police Station registered the
crime under Section 302, IPC and Section 25 (1B)(a) of
the Indian Arms Act against the accused. The Assistant
Commissioner of Police (PW15—Pandian) took up the
investigation and after completing the formalities of
holding inquest and preparing inquest report (Ext. P21),
sent the body of the deceased for postmortem. On
August 29, 2008 the accused appeared before the Village
Administrative Officer (VAO) and confessed to committing
the crime. When the VAO produced the accused with
their confessional statements, the I.O. arrested them and
at their instance recovered material objects including
Single Barrel Muzzle Loading Gun (MO1), torch light with
battery, blood stained and normal soil, torn clothes,
lungi, towel etc. and sent them for chemical analysis.
Subsequently, the learned Judicial Magistrate committed
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the case to the Principal District and Sessions Judge,
Coimbatore who framed charges against the accusedappellant under Section 302 read with Section 34, IPC.
The appellant denied the charges and claimed to be tried.
4. After an elaborate trial, the Trial Judge opined that
the circumstantial evidence correlates with the accused
and clearly proves that owing to prior enmity, A1 and A2,
in furtherance of their common intention, committed the
murder of the deceased with a gun shot from the
unauthorized gun owned by accusedappellant. The Trial
Court thereby found both the accused guilty and
accordingly convicted the appellant herein under Section
302 read with Section 34, IPC and sentenced him to life
imprisonment and also to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000 vide
order dated 18.05.2011. Both the accused preferred an
appeal before the High Court which was dismissed vide
order dated December 13, 2011. Aggrieved thereby, both
the accused preferred separate appeals before this Court.
It is pertinent to state that the appeal of the A1 stood
abated owing to his death during its pendency. Thus, we
are now concerned only with the appeal preferred by A2.
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5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant
contended that the courts below have incorrectly relied on
the testimonies of interested witnesses who are relatives
of the deceased. He submitted that the chain of
circumstances connecting the appellant to the crime is
incomplete. He further submitted that the courts below
erred in holding that the appellant had motive to commit
the alleged crime and shared a common intention with
A1, inasmuch as the land dispute between A1 and the
victim had already been settled amicably in the
panchayat. He argued that A1, A2 and the victim were on
friendly terms thereafter which is reinforced from the fact
that they used to go to the forest for hunting together.
6. Learned counsel appearing for the State, however,
supported the judgment of the High Court and submitted
that there was no occasion for this Court to interfere with
it.
7. We have heard the learned counsels for the parties
and meticulously perused the material on record.
8. Admittedly, the deceased, A1 and A2 (appellant
herein) were neighbouring agricultural landowners and
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used to go for hunting together. Further, there is no
denial of the fact that around 15 years prior to the date of
incident, the deceased and A1 had entered into a deal
through which land was sold to the deceased, but the
same was never registered. Additionally, record shows
that A2—the appellant herein, whose land was adjacent
to that of A1, always supported A1 in the matter of
delaying the registration of land in favour of the deceased.
This is the factual matrix of enmity between the accused
and the deceased which serves as motive for the offence.
Despite this, the deceased kept on going to the forest for
hunting with the accused persons. These facts are
abundantly clear from the testimonies of PWs 1, 2, 3, 4
and 6.
9. Further, PW1 – wife of the deceased (complainant),
who is the witness to the last seen, supported the
prosecution version and deposed that two days prior to
the incident she had pressed A1 to register the land, but
he kept quiet and went away. She further stated that
owing to this preexisting enmity, the accused persons
were motivated to eliminate her husband. Thus, on the
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fateful night, the accused had come, armed, to take the
deceased along with them to the forest, a request which
was acceded to by the deceased hesitatingly.
10. With respect to the deposition of PWs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6
which firmly establish the prosecution version, the
learned counsel for the appellant contended that they are
interrelated and interested witnesses, thus, making their
evidence unreliable.
11. Criminal law jurisprudence makes a clear distinction
between a related and interested witness. A witness
cannot be said to be an “interested” witness merely by
virtue of being a relative of the victim. The witness may
be called “interested” only when he or she derives some
benefit from the result of a litigation in the decree in a
civil case, or in seeing an accused person punished. [See:
Sudhakar v. State, (2018) 5 SCC 435].
12. In the case at hand, witnesses maybe related but
they cannot be labelled as interested witnesses. A
scrutiny of their testimonies which has stood the rigour of
crossexamination corroborates the prosecution story.
13. PW2—brother of the deceased and PW3—nephew of
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the deceased, clearly deposed that when they came to
know from PW1 that the deceased did not turn up after
leaving home at 11 pm on the previous night, they went
in search of him and found his dead body in ‘Vaalaithope’.
Similarly, PW4 – another nephew of the deceased has also
deposed that upon coming to know from his brother—
PW3 about the death of his uncle, he along with his
mother went to ‘Vaalaithope’ where they found the dead
body of the deceased. PW6—another nephew of the
deceased also deposed in his statement that when he
went to Sirumugai Police Station he saw the accused
persons there and witnessed their confessional
statements recorded by the police. He also stated that he
accompanied the police with the accused to the place of
occurrence where normal and blood stained mud was
collected, and that he signed the observation Mahazar
(Ex.P7).
14. Going by the corroborative statements of these
witnesses, it is discernible that though they are related to
each other and to the deceased as well, their evidence
cannot be discarded by simply labelling them as
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“interested” witnesses. After thoroughly scrutinizing their
evidence, we do not find any direct or indirect interest of
these witnesses to get the accused punished by falsely
implicating him so as to meet out any vested interest. We
are, therefore, of the considered view that the evidences of
PWs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 are quite reliable and we see no
reason to disbelieve them.
15. With respect to forensic evidence, Dr. T. Jeya Singh
(PW12), who conducted post mortem on the body of the
deceased, found prominent injures on the body of the
deceased and opined that the deceased died due to shock
and haemorrhage from multiple injuries (perforating and
penetrating) which were possible due to piercing of
pellets. The post mortem report and chemical analysis
report confirms the gun shot and proves that the gun
powder discovered on the body and clothes of the
deceased was the residue of the gun (MO1). The
ownership of this gun (MO1), which was discovered on
the basis of his extrajudicial confession, has not been
disputed by the appellant in his Section 313 Cr.P.C.
statement.
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16. The counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant
agitated the genuineness and admissibility of the extrajudicial confession of the accused on the basis of which
recovery of gun (MO1) was made. He questioned the same
on the basis of absence of the examination of the VAO
who allegedly recorded the same. It is to be noted that the
record indicates that the VAO could not be examined due
to his death before the commencement of the trial.
However, it is clear that the said confessional statement,
was sent by the VAO to the Inspector of Police along with
a covering letter (Ext. P14). Moreover, the Village
Assistant—PW11, even though turned hostile, had
specifically deposed that the said extra judicial confession
was recorded by the VAO.
17. Though the prosecution case is premised on
circumstantial evidence in the absence of any eyewitness, the depositions of prosecution witnesses which
have stood the rigour of crossexamination clearly
support the prosecution version and establishes enmity
between the accused and the deceased. This fact
supported by PW1’s last seen evidence, her prompt
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complaint to the police and the forensic evidence which
correlates the recovered weapon to the physical injuries
on the body of the deceased proves the prosecution case
beyond any reasonable doubt independent of the extrajudicial confession.
18. Thus, the High Court was justified in upholding the
conviction of the appellant and did not commit any
illegality in passing the impugned judgment which merits
interference. Therefore, the appeal being devoid of merit
stands dismissed.
……………………………….……..J.
(N. V. RAMANA)
……………………………………...J.
(MOHAN M. SHANTANAGOUDAR)
NEW DELHI;
APRIL 26, 2019.
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