Full Judgment Text
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REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(s). 131 OF 2006
CHANDRA BONIA Appellant (s)
VERSUS
STATE OF ASSAM Respondent(s)
O
R D E R
This
appeal
against
the
conviction has been filed against the concurrent findings
recorded by the trial court and the High Court for a double
th
murder committed on 7 October,1990 for which the appellant was
sentenced for life on two counts, both sentences to run
concurrently.
As per the prosecution story, Somra Munda and Agnash Munda,
the father and brother of the first informant were murdered
th
during the night of 7 October, 1990 in their house. The First
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Information Report was lodged by Chukhnu Munda at Police Station
th
Marian on the 8 October, 1990 alleging that during his absence
from the house some persons had murdered his father and younger
brother. During the course of the investigation, the police
recorded the statement of various witnesses including PW 1 Pradip
Das and PW 2 Niran Bonia (who were both declared hostile), PW 5,
the Medical Officer who had conducted the post mortem on the two
dead bodies, PW 6 the informant and PW 7 Baloni Bawri, who was a
neighbour
of the
deceased,
and to
whom the
accused
had made
an extra
judicial
confession on the date of the murder itself and PW 12 the
Investigating Officer who was also a witness to the recovery of
the murder weapon at the instance of the accused. The trial
court and the High Court have both noticed that as the solitary
eye witness had died and the other two material witnesses PW 1
and PW 2 had been declared hostile, the prosecution story rested
exclusively on the confession made by the accused to PW 7 and the
factum of recovery of the dao at the instance of the accused
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before PW 12 the Investigating Officer.
At the hearing before us today, Mr. Praneet Ranjan, the
learned Amicus Curiae for the accused – appellant has argued that
the only evidence against the accused was the extra judicial
confession made before PW 7 and as this evidence was a weak kind
of evidence, the conviction of the appellant could not be
maintained. He has further submitted that police had, in fact,
used third degree methods and tortured and threatened the
witnesses
to give
false
evidence
and as
such the
case
against
the
appellant
appeared to be a concocted one.
Mr. Avijit Roy, the learned counsel for the State of Assam,
however, has supported the judgments of the courts below.
It is true that an extra judicial confession is a very weak
piece of evidence and ordinarily a conviction solely on the basis
of such evidence cannot be maintained. The confession, made by
the appellant to PW 7, however, falls in a different category. A
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reading of the evidence of PW 7 clearly reveals that her house
was about 100 yards away from the murder site and that when she
had come out from her house to throw the starch out of the cooked
rice, she had seen three persons running away from the house of
the deceased and that a little later, the appellant - accused had
come to her house carrying a dao and addressing her as Didi had
told her that he had murdered two persons and cautioned her not
to disclose this fact to anybody otherwise she too would be
killed,
and on
account
of fear,
she and
her
husband
had left
their
residence
and shifted to some other place. We also see that the statement
of PW 7 recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C is almost in identical
terms. It is therefore evident that the extra judicial
confession was made in a different background in as much that as
the appellant suspected that he had been identified by the
witness he had returned to warn her not to divulge any
information to anyone. The very proximity of the murder and the
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extra judicial confession made to PW 7 speaks volumes as to its
authenticity. We also see from the record that the alleged
murder weapon, a dao, had been recovered at the instance of the
appellant. It is true that the independent witnesses of the
recovery have not supported the prosecution, but we have no
reason to doubt the evidence of PW 12 on this score.
On an overall assessment of the facts the prosecution
story is proved beyond reasonable doubt.
We
thus find
no merit
in this
appeal
and the
same is
dismissed.
The fee of the Amicus Curiae is fixed at Rs.7000/-.
........................J
(HARJIT SINGH BEDI)
.......................J
(CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD)
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NEW DELHI
MARCH 30, 2011
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