Criminal Appeal No. – 592/596 of 2000
MADRAS HIGH COURT
Date of Judgement: 29th July 2003
Bench: Hon’ble A Venkatachalamoorthy J., Hon’ble S S Hussain J.
Relevant Acts/Sections:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for Murder)
- Section 379 IPC (Punishment for theft)
- Section 9 IEA (Facts necessary to explain or introduce relevant facts)
Branch: Forensic Physics
Backstory
Mancikam lives at Salem, is the father of Balasubramaniam @ Balu (deceased) and Mohan. Balasubramaniam @ Balu was living at Erode with his wife. Balu was the car driver of Ambassador bearing Reg No. TMR-1455, he used to park his car near the Pannerselvam Park, Erode, along with Murugan, Shanmugam, and Ponnusamy.
Wife of Balu, stated that on 28th July 1991, Balu left for the taxi stand with his lunch box at 5 P.M. saying he will come back shortly, but the deceased has not come back for the past three days. Mancikam, enquired the taxi drivers, one of the drivers informed, on the previous Sunday at about 07:30 P.M., A-1 and others came and took Balu forcibly in his car. On 01st August 1991 at about 10:30 P.M., Mancikam registered a complaint at Erode Town Police Station under that accused Ranganathan and 5 others had forcibly taken Balu. Sub-Inspector of Police (East Crimes) registered Cr. No. 712/1991 under Section 364 and Section 379 IPC.
On 01st August 1991 at about 11:45 P.M., Erode PS Inspector of Police visited a taxi stand near the Pannerselvam Park, Erode examined and recorded statements of PWs 3, PWs 4 and others. On 02nd August 1991 at about 04:30 A.M., arrested Ranganathan at Erode Bus-stand, he gave a confession statement and shown the place where the deceased body and the car. They held an Inquest over the body of the deceased between 09:00 A.M. and 12:00 P.M., inquest report. Body of the deceased was in a decomposed state, so the post-mortem conducted at the crime scene itself by Dr. Sathyamangalam, and the case was altered under Section 302 IPC and they prepared Express FIR.
From the body of the Balu partly burnt shirt, Baniyan, Jatti, Pant, Waist-Cord, Ring seized from the crime scene. At Achipatti in Pollachi Taluk, seized Car, bearing registration no. TMR-7486 and a requisition was sent to Finger Print Expert to search any available fingerprint impressions in the seized car.
Postmortem Report
On 02nd August 1991, Dr. Sathyamangalam conducted the post-mortem at the crime scene, the body was in a decomposed state, the doctor opined that the deceased would have died 4-5 days before post-mortem. The post-mortem report issued. The bones like left femur left tibia and left fibula, right hummers, right radius, and right ulna, skull and lower jaw with teeth, pelvis whole, hyoid bone preserved using formalin for bone analysis.
Forensic Report
The scientific officer in the Physical Division of the Forensic Science Department, assigned nos. for each bone, no. 7 was assigned to the skull. He has opined in the forensic report (Ex. P 19), that the bone no. 7 (skull) should be that of a deceased person found in a photograph. The Finger Print Expert searched the seized car and found a fingerprint, which tallied with Ranganathan right middle finger.
Judgement
The accused Ranganathan and Rajan are charged under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC, for causing the death of Balasubramaniam @ Balu and found them guilty and sentenced them to undergo life imprisonment.