REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 632 OF 2005
RAJA GOUNDER & ANR.
.. APPELLANT(S)
vs.
STATE OF TAMIL NADU
.. RESPONDENT(S)
O
RDER
We have heard learned counsel for the parties in
extenso.
We find that two Courts have found against the
appellants more particularly that PW.1 the first informant,
the wife of the deceased, is also the sister-in-law of the
appellants as the deceased and the appellants were
brothers. It has also come in evidence that the relations
between the parties were strained on account of a land
dispute and this was the motive for the murder.
It has been contended by Mrs. K. Sarada Devi, the
learned counsel for the appellants, that there were several
suspicious circumstances in the prosecution evidence in as
much that the FIR had been lodged after 13 hours and there
was no explanation forthcoming to explain the delay and
this delay has been utilized by the prosecution to evolve
a false story and that PW.2 the sister of the deceased and
the appellants who had been cited as witness had not been
produced as a witness. In addition, it has been argued
that in the FIR, PW.1 had referred to two injuries caused
to the deceased but eight injuries had been detected during
the post-mortem.
We find that all these issues have been examined by
the Courts below and it has been found that the delay in
the lodging the FIR had been explained as the incident had
happened at 10.00 p.m. at a little distance from the house
of the deceased, and PW.1, a young woman, would have been
in a great distress and had first sent information to her
parents in their village some distance away and had
thereafter left for the police station to lodge the
report. We find that the conduct of PW.1 was perfectly
compatible with the behaviour of a young widow who had seen
a brutal attack on her husband. It is true that no
independent witness has been examined but in the background
that a dispute existed within the family, independent
witnesses would not ordinarily be available. We thus have
absolutely no reason to doubt the evidence of PW.1 as she
would be the last person to involve the appellants in a
false case leaving out the real assailants. We are not
surprised that the mother of the deceased and the
appellants who had been cited as a PW but had instead
appeared in Court as a defence witness, as this is a
common tendency in fratricides, and particularly where
parents are involved as witnesses in as much that after
tempers cool and there is time for reflection they find
that while one child has been murdered and the other faces
the prospect of serving a long sentence on their evidence
which will, without a doubt, be believed, invariably makes
their resile from their police statements. We also find no
discrepancy vis.-a-vis. the ocular and medical evidence. We
notice that the incident happened in the dead night and it
would not have been possible for the PW.1 to see all the
blows striking the deceased and to identify every blow
given by the appellants in the darkness, would have smacked
of tutoring of the witness. Two courts have found against
the appellants on a minute appreciation of the evidence on
this aspect as well. We are thus not inclined to interfere
in this appeal.
Dismissed.
.................J.
(HARJIT SINGH BEDI)
....................J.
(R.M. LODHA)
New Delhi,
September 28, 2010.