A bench of Justice JJ Munir and Justice Saurabh Srivastava added that if the accused fails to offer a cogent explanation for a fact that is inculpatory and especially within their knowledge, it would be added to the chain of circumstances appearing against them.

The Court made these significant observations while dismissing two connected criminal appeals filed by a husband (Sudhakar) and his parents (Gauri Shankar and Munni Devi), challenging a 2017 Trial Court judgment convicting them under Section 302/34 IPC and sentencing them to life imprisonment for the murder of their daughter-in-law.

Case in brief

Briefly put, on May 10, 2015, the informant (father of the deceased woman) lodged a written report with the police alleging that his daughter was murdered by her husband and in-laws over dowry demands, including ₹1 lakh in cash and a Pulsar motorcycle.

However, during the trial, all 9 prosecution witnesses of fact, including the victim's father (the informant) and her brothers, turned hostile.

In fact, in the dock, the informant disowned the contents of his own FIR and casually claimed that he later got to know that some unknown miscreants had murdered the deceased.

Despite this, the trial court convicted the three accused (appellants) by relying heavily on circumstantial and medical evidence against them. The Court, however, acquitted them of the specific dowry death charges.

Challenging their conviction, they moved the High Court, wherein it was their case that it was not conclusively proved that the deceased was strangulated to death by someone else. They suggested that she could have well died as a result of hanging.

High Court's observations

At the outset, the Court noted that the incident had no eye-witnesses and hence, it was a case that ultimately turned upon circumstantial evidence.

Regarding the contention that there was no sign of strangulation, the High Court noted that, as per the post-mortem report, the autopsy revealed a continuously horizontal ligature mark below the thyroid, ecchymosed subcutaneous tissue, and a fractured hyoid bone on the right side.

The Bench found these signs to be classic signs of strangulation, completely distinct from hanging. Furthermore, it noted that the presence of six other contusions on her body clearly indicated a violent ante-mortem struggle.

Regarding the stance of the hostile witnesses that 'miscreants' had intruded and murdered the woman, the High Court found the narrative utterly unbelievable.

The Bench reasoned that there was no “earthly reason” as to why miscreants would enter the deceased's matrimonial home, unless they had an intention to commit some offence, like theft, robbery or dacoity. Admittedly, it was not a case of robbery or dacoity.

The Court further noted that if intruders had indeed entered the house, it was highly unnatural that only the daughter-in-law suffered fatal injuries while her husband and in-laws remained completely 'unscathed'.

Furthermore, the bench found that there was an overbearing chain of circumstances, almost complete, pointing to the guilt of the appellants that they violently throttled the deceased inside her shared household.

Therefore, the High Court invoked Section 106 of the Evidence Act while noting that what actually transpired inside the house was a fact “especially within the knowledge” of the husband and the in-laws.

Pointing out that the accused were totally silent regarding the death in their Section 313 CrPC statements, the Court remarked thus:

"Given all these circumstances, burden under Section 106 of the Evidence Act would lie upon the appellants to explain how the deceased came to be done to death in a most violent manner within the four corners of her matrimonial home. Absent that explanation by the appellants, by as much as a hint even in the statements under Section 313 Cr.P.C., this is a clinching link of circumstances pointing to the appellants' guilt".

"The appellants having not come forward with an explanation about the circumstances in which the victim met an unnatural death or was violently murdered in her matrimonial home, leads to the inescapable conclusion taken together with the other circumstances in their entirety that it was the appellants who did her to death", the bench further added.

Thus, finding no infirmity in the trial court's judgment, the High Court dismissed the appeals and directed the father-in-law and mother-in-law, who were on bail, to surrender immediately to serve their life sentences.

Counsel for the Appellants: Dinesh Kumar Verma, Raghuraj Singh, Rakesh Pati Tiwari, Sushil Kumar Mishra