Criminal appeal no- 000640-000641/2016
Supreme court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Uday Lalit J., Hon’ble Ms. Indu Malhotra J., Hon’ble Mr. Hemant Gupta J.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 24-04-2020
BRANCH OF FORENSIC SCIENCE: Voice analysis (Forensic Physics)
RELEVANT SECTIONS/ACTS:
Indian penal code (IPC) act, 1860
- Section120-B – Punishment of criminal conspiracy.
- Section 364A – Kidnapping for ransom, etc.
- Section 302 – Punishment for murder.
- Section 201 – Causing disappearance of evidence of the offense, or giving false information to screen offender.
BACK STORY
Briefly stated, the F.I.R. no. 287 of 2014 was lodged by Dr. Chandak (PW-1) to the sub-inspector of Lakadganj police station, Nagpur city at 17:10 hours on 01-09-14. (PW-1). He made oral statements that his son Yug (8yrs) found missing and he received a ransom call from unknown phone no. of PCO when he and his wife were in their clinic. Their driver Raju T Ote (PW-2) and watchman of their housing society namely Pramanand Meshram (PW-31) also seen Yug towards Chappuru Nagar Chowk with an unknown person on black sooty wearing red sleeves T-shirt, full pants and wrapped around his face with a handkerchief, wearing the same uniform like that of employees of Dr.Chandak clinic.
After that oral statement by PW-1, information received of kidnapping and death of the victim (Yug) and then the initial investigation was carried out by N.T. Goswami (PW-25), and later taken over by S.k. Jaiswal (PW-50). On completion of the investigation, the dead body recovered and, the prosecution presented charge sheet for the trial of the accused. The prosecution examined 50 witnesses including mainly the Rupali (PW-23), Rajan Tiwari (PW-2), Bihari Lal Sadhuram Chabbaria (PW-17) in support of the charge levelled against the Rajesh (Accused no. 1)and Arvind Kumar (Accused no. 2) and thus their identity been disclosed by above (PW-23,2,17), who was resident and shopkeeper of Dr. Chandak apartment respectively. Accused no.1, younger brother Ankush was also involved in this crime was being dealt with by the Juvenile Justice Board.
The investigation carried out and the witnesses help not only in disclosing the identity of the accused and also recovered the dead body of the victim. Then Manoj Thakkar (PW-4) Panch Witness searched both the accused and the police recovered the Max mobile company cell phone and black-silver colour Samsung cell phone and 2 SIM cards from both which taken into possession for further voice sample analysis.
POSTMORTEM REPORT
The post mortem conducted on 3rd September 2014 between 12.00 hrs. To 13:45 hrs. By a team of three Doctors. Dr. Avinash Waghmode (PW-27) had examined to prove the postmortem report (Ex.103). The cause of death found to be smothering and the time since death was 36 to 48 hours. There were as many as 26 injuries found on the dead body, which included Injury Nos. 22 to 26 as post mortem injuries. Dr. Avinash Waghmode (PW-27) deposed that Injury Nos. 1 -21 and 26 may have been perimortem injuries i.e. the injuries caused during the activation and working of vital functions. With this background, the evidence of the prosecution examined in the present appeals in the following manner:
- The evidence of the last seen.
- Discovery of incriminating facts.
- The demand for Ransom.
- Motivative and conspiracy.
- Corroborative evidence.
VOICE IDENTIFICATION REPORT
The learned trial court in its judgment dated 30th January 2016 examined the prosecution evidence under the following heads for the comparison and corroborate the voice spectrographic report of CFSL of the seized evidence i.e. cell phones, Sim cards CCTV footage, etc.
A) Ocular evidence of prosecution witnesses relating to kidnapping/abduction of victim-Yug by the accused.
B) The theory of doctrine of last seen together of victim-Yug in the company of accused,
C) The evidence of T.I. Parade.
D) The evidence of CCTV footage.
E) The evidence of demand for ransom from the accused.
F) The evidence of recovery of the dead body as well as incriminating articles etc. u/s. 27 of the Evidence Act.
G) The circumstances of motive, preparation, and previous conduct of the accused u/s. 8 of the Evidence Act.
H) The evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
JUDGEMENT
On the basis of the above witnesses and evidence the learned trial court convicted Rajesh and Arvind for the offences punishable under Sections 120-B, 364A, 302, 201 read with Section 34 IPC. By a subsequent order, both were sentenced to death for the offences punishable under Section 364A read with Section 34 IPC and Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC on both offences. The learned trial court also convicted Rajesh and Arvind for offences punishable under Section 120-B of IPC, to suffer imprisonment for life and to pay fine of Rs.10, 000/- and for an offence punishable under Section 201 read with Section 34 IPC, A-1 and A-2 were sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 7 years and to pay fine of Rs.5, 000/-.