Paragraph numbers below are the court’s original numbering, recovered from the source text.
14. There is no doubt that conviction can be based solely on circumstantial evidence but it should be tested by the touch- stone of law relating to circumstantial evidence laid down by the this Court as far back as in 1952.
15. In Hanumant Govind Nargundkar and Anr. V State G of Madhya Pradesh, (AIR 1952 SC 343), wherein it was ob- –1.. served thus: "It is well to remember that in cases where the evidence is of a circumstantial nature, the circumstances fron:i which SUPREME. COURT REPORTS ' : . the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be in the first instance be fully established and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis … of the guilt of the acc1.Jsed. Again, the circumstances should be of. a conclusive .nature and tendency and they should . be .. such as to _exclud~ every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. In other words, there must be a .chain of evidence _so far complete as not to leave any . re~sonable ·ground for a conclusion consistent with the · innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show c that within all human. probability the act must have been done by the accused." '1
16. A reference may be made to a later decision .in Sharad Birdti°iC,hf!m;l Sarda v. St9te of MaharashtraJ. (AIR 1984 SC 162.2~. Therein, ~hile dealing with ci~cumstantial evidence,. it has been held that onus was on the prosecution to prove that the chain is con;iplete and the infirm,ity of lacuna inprosecution cannot be cured by false defence or plea. The co.nditions pre- cedent ·in the words of this Court, before conviction could be based. qn circum?tantial evidence, rnust. be f_ully · e_stablished. E They are: (1) the circumstances-from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should· be fully established. The circumstances concerned must or should and not may be established; · · (2) ·the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is ' to say, they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis exceptthat the accused is guilty; ·· (3) · the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature ·· and tendency; (4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except · the-one to be proved; and (5) there must be a chain of evidence so compete as· INSPECTOR OF POLICE, TAMIL NADU v. · BALAPRASANNA [DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.] not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.
17. These aspectswere highlighted in State of Rajasthan v. Rajaram (2003(8) SCC 180), State of Haryana v. · Jcigbir Singh &Anr. (2003(11) sec 261).
18. The ,main circumstances relied upon by the prosecu- tion relates to the statements of the-accused leading to discov- ery of materials facts, admissible under Section 27 of the In- dian Evidence Act, 1872 (in short the 'Evidence Act').
19. Law is well settled t.hat the prosecution while relying upon the confessional statement leading to discovery of articles under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, has to prove through co"gent evidence that the statement has been made voluntarily D and leads to discovery of the relevant facts. The scope and ambit of Section 27 of the Evidence Act had been stated and restated in several decisions of this Court. However, in almost all such decisions reference is made to the observation of the Privy CounCil in Pu/ukuri Kotayya v. Emperor (AIR 1947 PC 67). It is worthwhile to extract such quoted obser\tation: "It is fallacious to treat the 'fact discovered' within the section as equivalent to the object ·pro-duced; the fact . discovered embraces the place from which the object is produced and the knowledge of the accused as to this and the information given must relate distinctly to this fact. Information as to past user" or the past history, of the object produced· 1s not related to his discovery in the setting in which it is discovered. Information-supplied by a person in G. custody that 'I will produce a knife concealed in the roof of my house' does not lead to the discovery of the knife; knives were discovered m·any years ago. It leads to the discovery of the fact that a knife is concealed in the house of the informant to his knowledge, and if the knife is proved to have been used in the commission of the offence, the fact discovered is very relevant. But if to the statement the words be added 'with which stabbed A', these words are inadmissible since they do not related to the discovery of the knife in the house of the informant (p.77)".
20. At one time it was held that the expression "fact dis- covered" in the section is restricted to a physical or material fact which can be perceived by the senses, and that it does not include a mental fact, now it is fairly settled that the expression "fact discovered" includes not only the physical object produced, c butalso the place from which it is produced and the knowledge of the accused as to this, as noted in Pulukuri Kottaya's case (supra).
21. The various requirements of the section can be summed up as follows: (1) The fact of which evidence is sought to be given must be relevant to the issue. It must be borne in mind that the provision has nothing to do with the question of relevancy. The relevancy of the fact discovered must be established according to the prescriptions relating to relevancy of other evidence connecting it with the crime in order to make the fact discovered admissible. (2) The fact must have been discovered. (3) The discovery must have been in consequence of some information -received from the accused and ,… not by the accused's own act. (4) The person giving the information must be accused of any offence. (5) He must be in the custody of a police officer. (6) The discovery of a fact in consequence of information received from an accused in custody must be deposed to. INSPECTOR OF POLICE, TAMIL NADU v. BALAPRASANNA [DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.] · ( 7) Thereupon only that portion of the information which relates distinctly or strictly to the fact discovered can be proved. The rest is Inadmissible.
22. As observed in Pulukuri Kottaya's case (supra) it can seldom happen that information leading to the discovery of a 8 fact forms the foundation of the prosecution case. It is one link in the chain of proof and the other links must be. forged in a manner allowed by law. To similar effect was the view expressed in K. Chinnaswamy Reddy v. State of A.P (AIR 1962 SC 1788).
23. The above position was highlighted in Anter Singh v. c State of Rajasthan (AIR 2004 SC 26651.
24. In Rammi alias Rameshwar v. State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1999 SC 3544) the scope and ambit of Section 27 of the Evidence Act was analysed in great detail and it was concluded in para 12 as follows: "12. True, such information is admissible in evidence under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, but admissibility alone would not render the evidence, pertaining to the above information, reliable. While testing the reliability of such E evidence the court has to see whether it was voluntarily stated by the accused."
25. Signifitantly, the prosecution has relied upon the evi- dence of PW 40 who was investigating initially. His evidence has to be considered in the background of what has been stated' F by PW 22 and CW 1. It has been accepted by the prosecution that great efforts were made by PW 40 to falsely implicate to PWs 1 to 4 and for that purpose a departmental proceeding was initiated. Even according to the statement of the subse: quent investigating officer (PW 42), several blank papers with G the signature of PW 22 and CW 1 had been by PW 40 and such documents had been used to create false records to im~· plicate PWs 1to4. It is to be noted that PW 2 himself was o·ne of the su~pected person at the initial stage df investigation.
26. That apart, materials on record such as the statement H INSPECTOR OF POLICE, TAMIL NADU v. BALAPRASANNA [DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.] there is nothing to indicate that in fact the bloodstained clothes A and rope had tallied with the blood grouping of the deceased. The knife did not contain any bloodstain. Therefore, the aspect relating to recovery of articles from the house of P.W.3 and his mother cannot be considered as a link to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence.
28. The next recovery relates to recovery of computer and accessories. Apart from the fact thatthere is niggling doubt about the so called confession, in view of statement under Section 164 of the Code of P.W.22 and the statement of C.W.1, a further doubt is raised regarding such aspect in view of evidence of C.W.1 to C the effect that he had seen such computer in the rooryi of the deceased when they had gone to the room after the offence was reported. The fact that C.W.1 is a close relation of the deceased adds weight to his evidence rather than taking it away. E_ven ac- cepting that the computer had been given to P.W.15 by the ac- cused, such circumstance by itself does not unerringly points to-~ wards the guilt of the accused either in respect of offence of mur- der or even robbery. It is quite possible that such articles might hc;ive been borrowed by the accused from the deceased and not necessarily stolen by the accu.sed from the deceased after kill- ing her. The fact that P.W.9 had not initially stated anything before P.W.40 about the accused coming down with computer at 3.30 P.M. and stated so for the first time when she was re-examined after 5 months cannot be lost sight of. As a matter of fact, P.W.9 who was examined on the very date when police started investi-. gation did not inform the police that she had see~ the accused coming down from upstairs or that the accused had threatened her. Her statement to the following: "I did not tell anyone that Balaprasanna took away the computer and threatenad me. I did not tell this even to the G Inspector of Police after going to the police station. I do not tell this even to P.W.1 … ".
29. The next recovery relates to the ingots. For the afore- said aspect, the evidence of P.'Ns. 17, 18 and 19 is relevant. H SUPREME GOURT REPORTS -;.( A Since the golden jewellery had been molten and were recov- ered in the shape of ingots, it would be very hazardous to come to the conclusion that in fact the gold.en jewellery belonged to the deceased. If the accused had killed the deceased and sto- len those golden jewellery, there is no reason as to why he had s. also not taken ear rings from the deceased. The fact that ear rings were_ on. the dead body is .admitteq _by the prosecution.
30. The prosecution has .strongly relied upon the fact that "M" Dollar belonging to· the deceased and .a chain with key of the room ofthe deceased were discovered from inside the toi-'. let in the··roomwhich was previously occupied by the accused. For the aforesaid·purpose, they have relied upon the evidence. of P.W.42 and· the'·seizure witness P:W.24. The accused had allegedly made·earlier confessional statement before P.W.40 on 26'·4-2003 leadingto discovery of several articles.The sub-' sequerit statement spoken to by P.W.42, the subsequent lnves-' tigatihg Officer, is alleged to have been made only in .septem-. ber; 2003, after about five months. So far as the first confession statement made before P.VV.40 is ·concerned, admittedly the accused was under physical custody, at that time, whereas at: the time of last confession stated to have been made before >— P.W.42, the accused was on bail and he had beeA summoned by P~W.42 for further examination and; therefore, technically in custody. If the accused had not made such a statement at such first instance, when he had confessed about other articles, it:is not understood as to how after 5 months when he was on baii he would make.such a statement. Such alleged confession made. ,I..-. belatedly tf.rus' creates doubt: regarding its authenticity ·or voluntariness. In this context, i1 is·to be noted thatc:w. 1 states that "M'.'. Qollarwas taken from him by P.W.42 for the purpose of facil_i~ating investigation. Keeping in vie~ the fact that 9.vv.1 is a cl6s~ relation of the. deceased and obviously interested in t– punishing the real culprit, such a statemen.t coming from C.\N.1 "").- cannot be slightly brushed aside.
31. T~e fact that there had been 1;1. statement ~liege~ly made by P.W.-1 leading to recovery of a parallel key from the INSPECTOR OF POLICE, TAMIL NADU v. BALAPRASANNA [DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.] dash board of the car of P.W.1, cannot be lost sight of. It is of A course true that the prosecution has tried to exonerate P.W.1 by adducing _evidence through P.Ws. 36 and 39 to the effect that immediately after recovery of the dead body, P.W.40 had taken two such keys, thus contradicting the alleged confession of P.W.1. However, the very suspicious role of P.W.40, who ap- pare.ntly was in possession of at least two keys of the same lock creates suspicion regarding recovery of another key after 5 months.
32. Law is well settled that when the prosecution relies upon circumstantial ~vidence, all the links in the chain of cir- cumstances must be complete and should be proved through cogent evidence.
33. When the judgment of the High Court is analysed in the background of what has been stated by this Court as re- o gards circumstantial evidence, the inevitable conclusion is that .the impugned judgment of the High Court does not suffer from any infirmity to warrant interference. The appeal is dismissed. D.G. Appeal dismissed.