Punjab & Haryana High Court Acquits Man Sentenced To Death For Murdering Wife, Children & A Farm Worker Over 'Illicit Relationship'

Pointing out several discrepancies in the circumstantial evidence on which the Trial Court relied to convict and sentence the accused (Palwinder Singh) to death for murdering his entire family (including his wife and two children) and a farm worker, the Punjab & Haryana High Court set aside the conviction and acquitted him of the murder charges. 

The court acquitted both the accused, including Karamjit Kaur, who was sentenced to Life Imprisonment. The allegations against them suggested a conspiracy between the two to murder Singh's family and Kaur's husband, a farm worker, due to their suspected extramarital relationship. Both convicts tied the knot nine months after the demise of the victims.

Essentially, in 2015, Palwinder Singh and his wife Karamjit Kaur were accused of conspiring to murder their former spouses, who were allegedly obstacles to their marriage. It was alleged that Singh deliberately drove the car into a canal carrying his former wife, children, and his farm worker, the former husband of his present wife. All the occupants of the car, including his farm worker, died in the incident, except for Palwinder. Later, he married the widow of his worker, which raised suspicions among family members, leading to the filing of an FIR against them for committing murder, noted the Court.

In 2020, the Trial Court awarded the death penalty to Singh and a life sentence to his wife for murdering four family members including the farm worker by conspiracy.

While finding infirmities in the prosecution case and missing links in the circumstantial evidence the High Court set aside the conviction and directed to release both the accused.

A division bench of Justice G.S. Sandhawalia and Justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan said, "The trial Court has fallen back on the circumstantial evidence to convict the accused, which we feel was not appropriate. Rather than dealing with the discrepancies in the statements of the alleged eyewitnesses and giving the benefit to the accused, it has chosen to fall back on circumstantial evidence to record a conviction and, therefore, the reasons given for conviction also are not sustainable."

The Court was hearing the plea for confirmation of the death sentence and appeal against the Trial Court's judgement passed in 2020 wherein Palwinder Singh and his wife was convicted of committing murder. The couple was booked under Section 302 IPC read with Section 120- B IPC and 201 IPC.

After examining the submissions and the Trial Court's judgement, the Court doubted the testimony of Singh's brother-in-law, a "material witness" on whom the prosecution relied. He stated to be the eye-witness of the incident and testified that Singh and his present wife Kaur had planned the murder so that they could marry each other.

Discrepancies In Prosecution's Case

The bench highlighted that, "we are also of the considered opinion that the alleged motive of occurrence, i.e. both of the appellants were having illicit relationship as such and they finished the lives of their family members to perform their marriage with each other seems highly doubtful keeping in view the fact that there was no whisper of such relationship before the alleged occurrence. Neither during the life time of the deceased individuals nor thereafter, for 09 months any such allegations were ever made by any of the relatives, common friends or by any of the villagers."

Had there been so, the deceased wife of the appellant-accused Singh would have whispered something either to her parents or to her brother or to any of her friends. Similarly, no such complaint was ever made either verbally or in writing by any of the relatives of the deceased farm worker Nirmal Singh, added the Court.

The Court also raised questions about causing the delay in lodging the FIR stating that no doubt, the delay in lodging the FIR in itself cannot be taken as a ground to disbelieve the prosecution version but there has to be a satisfactory explanation to the said delay.

"The veracity of the said statement of the witness becomes highly doubtful keeping in view the fact that the said statement is a changed version after a period of 09 months. On the day of occurrence on 20.06.2015 the witness made a statement that he has witnessed the entire incident and found no foul play but after 09 months he totally changed the version," noted the Court.

It pointed out that the Trial Court erroneously condoned the delay aspect on account of the fact that Palwinder Singh was the sole survivor and had not attempted to save the others who were occupants of the car.

Furthermore, the bench opined that "unnecessary reliance" has been placed upon by the Trial Court on the fact that appellant-accused Palwinder Singh sold the car which he drove on the day of the incident for Rs.11,000/- to the junk dealer while not noticing the statement the junk dealer who had purchased it wherein, it has categorically been stated that the car was sold by Palwinder Singh on account of the fact that it had destroyed his family and whenever he saw the car, he memorized the family moments. 

This emotional aspect which had haunted the appellant-accused Palwinder Singh and had led to the sale of the car has been totally brushed aside by the trial Court and used against appellant-accused Palwinder Singh that he had tried to destroy the evidence on its own, it added.

The Court also observed statement of the accused under Section 313 Cr.P.C. was also never taken into aspect in the proper perspective wherein appellant-accused Palwinder Singh categorically his mother sent the proposal to Kaur because there was no one to look after her since her daughter in law i.e Singh's wife passed away.

In light of the above the Court concluded that the prosecution case suffers from a lot of infirmities and keeping in view the settled principle that in the case of circumstantial evidence, one is to look for the complete chain of circumstances, the same having not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, the conviction being based on the same is in contradiction to the law laid down by the Apex Court on several occasions.

Reliance was placed upon catena of judgements including Hanumant Govind Nargundkar and another vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1952 SC 343 and Musheer Khan @ Badshah Khan and another vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2010) 2 SCC 748

Consequently, the Couty acquitted the appellants and directed to release them forthwith.

Case Title: State of Punjab v. Palwinder Singh

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (PH) 287

Vinod Ghai, Senior Advocate, with Arnav Ghai and  B.N.S. Marok,  Kunwar Rajan, Advocates, for the appellant (in CRA-D-381-2020) and for the respondent (in MRC-3-2020).

Kunwar Ranjan, Advocate, for the appellant (in CRA-D-406-2020).

V.G.Jauhar, Additional A.G., Punjab for the appellant (in MRC-3-2020) and for the respondent-State (in CRA-D-406 and 380 of 2020).

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