Patna High Court: Noticing discrepancies in the Trial the Division Bench of Ashwani Kumar Singh and Anil Kumar Sinha, JJ., acquitted a woman accused of killing a 2 year old kid.
The appellant was alleged to have killed 2 year old child of the defendant whose body was found rolled in a gendra (a locally made mattress of textile in Bihar) and a plastic bag. The whole case of prosecution was based on circumstantial evidence, i.e., gendra in question belonged to the accused, frequent quarrel between accused and parents of the deceased, sniffer dog going to the house of the accused etc. The Trial Court found the accused guilty and convicted him for the offences punishable under Sections 302 and 201 of Penal Code, 1860.
Was admission made by son of the accused admissible?
Regarding the confession made by the son of the appellant was concerned, wherein he had, while in custody of IO, admitted that his mother had killed the victim boy, the Bench stated that statements made by an accused before the police amounts to confession are barred under Section 25 of the Evidence Act, 1872 and an extra-judicial confession by itself is a very weak type of evidence.
Can a person be convicted of a crime based on the evidence gathered by the police sniffer dog?
Noticing that the Trial Court had convicted the appellant on the evidence of a sniffer dog, the Bench opined, though the police was allowed to use the services of a sniffer dog for investigation, but merely because the dog entered the house of the appellant in her absence, the same could not be treated to be evidence sufficient enough to establish the guilt of the appellant and the appellant could not be convicted only on the basis of evidence gathered by the police sniffer dog.
Moreover, the circumstance that the sniffer dog entered the house of the appellant after smelling the place where the body of the deceased was thrown was not brought to the notice of the appellant while examining her by the Trial Court under Section 313 of the CrPC. Hence, the said circumstance could not have been taken into consideration as the accused was not granted opportunity to explain the circumstances. The Bench said,
“If the questions on incriminating circumstances have been ignored by the trial court, then it is an illegality and amounts to an abuse of the process of Court.”
Hence, circumstances which were never put to the appellant while examining her under Section 313 of the CrPC could not have been used for convicting and sentencing her.
Findings and Conclusion
Opining that to sustain a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the factual circumstances should be so established and only inference to the said circumstances must be that of the guilt of the accused, incompatible with any other hypothesis, the Bench took note that the gendra, which was seized by the police was never put before the Magistrate for an identification parade. Moreover, the Bench remarked, “gendra is a common item which is found in every house.”
Hence, holding that there was no cogent evidence to suggest that the gendra in which the body of the deceased was rolled belonged to the appellant, the Bench opined that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove each of the links in the chain of circumstances beyond reasonable doubts against the appellant.
Accordingly, the Trial Court’s order was set aside and the appellant was acquitted of the charges levelled against her. [Soni Devi v. State of Bihar, 2021 SCC OnLine Pat 2289, decided on 15-09-2021]
Kamini Sharma, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.
Appearance:
For the Appellant: Anirudh Kumar Sinha, Advocate and Santosh Kumar, Advocate
For the Respondent-State: Ajay Mishra, APP