Judges To Tread Cautiously In Circumstantial Evidence, Can't Allow Conjectures & Suspicion To Take Place Of Proof: Telangana High Court

The bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili was dealing with a criminal appeal filed by the accused-appellant, who was aggrieved by a conviction order passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, under Section 302 and S.201 of IPC.

One Ananthaiah had lodged a complaint in May 2008 that his mother, who had gone to work at Rajaiah's Brick factory and then had gone for dinner at Md. Rasheed's house had disappeared after the dinner and then her dead body was found lying in Patel Water Tank by Jakkulapally Venkataiah. Ananthaiah then pointed to one Anjilaiah, stating he had illegal relations with his mother and that's why he suspected him to be behind the death.

An FIR was registered and a charge sheet was filed. The prosecution then examined 11 witnesses and produced 12 documents and the conviction in the present case is based on testimonies of four witnesses (PW 1 – deceased's son Ananthaiah, PW 2 – deceased's daughter, PW 3 & PW 5 – Circumstantial witnesses).

The trial court relying on the testimony of PW1 and PW2, who had stated that their mother had left the house with the accused and had gone with the accused to dinner at PW5's house, convicted the accused. Although PW5 had stated categorically that the deceased alone had visited the house of the PW5 for dinner, he was declared hostile by the Prosecution. PW 6 and PW7 who are panch witnesses had respectively noticed scratch marks on the deceased's face and had seized a wooden stick from the accused.

The High Court, at the outset, cleared that the entire case of the prosecution was based on circumstantial evidence and iterated that in cases of circumstantial evidence, judges must tread cautiously to not allow suspicion and conjectures to take place of proof.

The bench then referred to the Supreme Court's judgment in Gargi v. State of Haryana which had elaborated on circumstantial evidence stating that "circumstantial evidence is the one whereby other facts are proved from which the existence of the fact in issue may either be logically inferred or at least rendered more probable."

Furthering referring to the Apex Court's judgment in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra where the panchsheel principles pertaining to circumstantial evidence were laid down, the bench reiterated those

• The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established
• The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the accused's guilt (and no other)
• Circumstances should be of conclusive nature and tendency
• Such circumstances should exclude every other hypothesis
• The chain of evidence must be so complete that it leaves no reasonable ground to conclude or even point to the innocence of the accused and must show in all human probability that the offence has been committed by the accused.

The bench thus, held that since the chain of events is not complete in the present case and it was not established that the stick obtained from the accused was the one used for causing injuries on the body of the deceased resulting in her death, the conviction of the accused was bad in law.

Further holding that "extra-judicial confession cannot be the sole basis of conviction and cannot be relied on when surrounding circumstances are improbable and create suspicion", the bench noted that since the chain of events does not lead to the result of accused committing the crime of murder, the trial court had erred in convicting the accused and the conviction of the accused was set aside and miscellaneous applications pending stood closed.

Case: Janapally Anjilaiah v. The State of A.P.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Tel) 10

Coram: Hon'ble Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Hon'ble Justice Sri Abhinand Kumar Shavili

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