Supreme Court: In the Swami Gadadharanand murder case, the bench of Kurian Joseph and A.M. Khanwilkar, JJ upheld the conviction of 2 Assistant Kotharis and one disciple of the Board of Trustees of the Swami Narayan sect of Vadtal Gadi Temple who killed the chairman of the Trust in the year 1998 when he proposed to transfer the Kotharis away from the Vadtal Temple as they feared being exposed of their misdeeds and maladministration.
Apart from the strong motive for committing the murder of Gadadharanandji and the criminal conspiracy hatched in that behalf and executed, the following factors led to the conviction of the accused persons in the present case:
- the presence of Gadadharanandji at Vadtal Temple complex on the day of incident, the evidence that he was last seen together with Accused No.3, who hasn’t filed an appeal against the order of the High Court, going from Vadtal Temple complex in a car,
- the recovery of a dead body in village Barothi in the neighboring state of Rajasthan on the next day of disappearance of the deceased,
- the disclosure made by Accused No.3 about the location as to where the dead body was dumped by him in a village at Barothi,
- the discovery of the fact after subsequent medical examination that the dead body so recovered was of none other than that of the deceased,
- the disclosure made by Accused No.5 of the location where the deceased was strangled at Navli Temple complex, the conduct of Accused No.3 in misleading the investigating agencies,
- the burning of the vehicle used in the commission of the crime and then filing of a false insurance claim which was rejected by the insurance company,
The Court said that the aforementioned factors leave no manner of doubt about the involvement of the appellants in the commission of the crime and hence, the life imprisonment awarded by the High Court does not warrant any intereference. The Court said that there need not be any direct evidence to establish the kind conspiracy involved in the present case. It can be a matter of inference drawn by the Court after considering whether the basic facts and circumstances on the basis of which inference is drawn have been proved beyond all reasonable doubts and that no other conclusion except that of the complicity of accused to have agreed to commit an offence is evident. The Court said that there is no legal evidence, in the present case, to give benefit of any doubt to the Appellants. [Charandas Swami v. State of Gujarat, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 361, decided on 10.04.2017]