Telangana High Court Overturns Acquittal In 2010 'Family Murder Case', Says Deposition Of 'Pardanashin' Lady Can't Be Discredited

The Telangana High Court has overturned the acquittal and sentenced the accused to life in prison for murder in 'the family murder case'. The Court held that the deposition of a 'pardanashin' lady, could not be discredited merely on the ground of her being a pardanashin.

The order was passed by a Division Bench of Justice K. Lakshman and Justice Juvvadi Sridevi in a Criminal Appeal filed by the State challenging the acquittal of 9 accused alleged to have planned and executed the murder of an entire family of 5 members.

When the matter was being heard by the Trial Court, the Court had noted that in the 6 alleged eye-witnesses, all except one had turned hostile and the one who had not turned hostile was the de-facto complainant/wife of one of the deceased/a pardanashin lady.

It further noted that the complainant in the F.I.R had named only 2 out of the 9 alleged accused and identified 4 of the accused at the time of trial. Additionally, no test identification parade was conducted.

Secondly, as per the version of the de-facto complainant, she had survived the attack because her husband had hidden her and locked her behind a grill gate to keep her safe. The trial Court noted that no such grill gate was visible in the rough sketch of the crime scene drawn out by the Investigating Officer.

Under these circumstances, the trial court held that the deposition of the de-facto complainant could not be taken on record as she seemed to be an interested witness and had improved her narration along the way.

The Division Bench while setting aside the acquittal of 4 accused who were identified by the key witness, noted:

“As stated above, in the present case, accused No.1 is nephew of deceased No.2. He is the husband of deceased No.5. The marriage PW.1 with deceased No.3 was performed on 19.02.2010. According to her, accused Nos.1 to 4 came to her in-laws' house two or three times to discuss about matrimonial disputes of accused No.1 with deceased No.5. She saw them. Therefore, she has identified them. Her evidence is supported by PWs.3 and 4. Thus, there was no need to conduct test identification parade in the present case. Taking advantage that PW.1, being Muslim and pardanashin lady is unable to identify the accused and that the Investigating Officer did not conduct test identification parade, such defense has been taken by the accused. But, in view of the above discussion, such contention of learned counsel for the respondents is unsustainable.”

Background:

In 2008, the daughter of the victim family got married into the family of the accused household. It was stated that only after 2 months, disputes arose amongst the new couple and soon after the girl came back to her paternal home leading to a suit for maintenance.

It was submitted that one day when the family of the accused was going to attend the proceedings in Court, they met with an accident and the mother of the accused passed away. The father of the accused went into depression and when the funeral was held, the family of the victim, who were related to the accused did not attend it.

It is alleged that the accused family, who was already facing financial difficulty due to the maintenance case was further frustrated at the passing of a family member, and blamed the victim family for the same, hatching a plan to do away with them.

The sole survivor was the wife of the brother of the girl who got married into the family of the accused. According to her, after the accused left, she called her father and also her sister-in-law, who in turn sent her husband to the scene of the crime. The husband of the sister-in-law reached the crime scene in 5-10 minutes and called the ambulance and the police.

The incident took place in the early morning hours and the F.I.R was registered at around 10:00 am. In the F.I.R the complainant gave the names of only two of the accused.

During cross-examination, the complainant admitted that she being Pardanashin lady, never came out before strangers including the accused, who are also strangers to her. She stated that she did not meet the accused when they came to her in-laws' house, but she saw them.

The accused in appeal contended that the de-facto complainant did not mention the names of all the accused in the F.I.R and only identified 4 of the accused at the stage of trial which shows that improvements were made to the narration and hence it could not be considered. Furthermore, it was contended that the complainant was a planted witness, as she being a pardanashin woman, could not have recognised the accused.

Findings

The Bench after analyzing the facts noted that prior to this, the accused never raised the plea that the de facto complainant was a planted witness. It stated:

“Though learned counsel for the respondents contended that she is a planted and interested witness, there was no suggestion to her with regard to the same during cross examination. On the other hand, the accused tried to take advantage of her second marriage performed on 02.03.2011 and the incident had occurred on 30.05.2010…”

The Bench also observed that although the rough sketch did not show the grill gate, the IO admitted to the same in the cross-examination. It reiterated that the accused could not be acquitted based on the faulty/defective investigation.

Accordingly, it overturned the acquittal and sentenced the accused to life imprisonment.

CrlA 57 of 2014

THE STATE OF A.P. vs SYED JAHANGIR AND 8 OTHERS

Counsel for State: PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Counsel for respondent: MOHD MUZAFFER ULLAH KHAN

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