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TMI Blog1974 (3) TMI 124X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... guilty of the offence charged. 3. The prosecution case, in brief, takes us to a small hospital scene where we have two medical officers, P.Ws. 2 and 3, a compounder the accused, and a peon, Badri. The senior doctor, P.W. 2, arrives in the hospital around 9-30 a.m. with a bad headache and asks the accused, appellant for ten grains of aspirin. Some 12 or 13 minutes are taken for the appellant to bring to his own doctor aspirin which is readily available in the dispensing room. The appellant brings two packets, 'asprin' written on them, and the patient-this time the doctor himself-consumes one packet. Bitten by bitterness of taste unusual in aspirin, P.W. 2 asks the attender, Badri, to fetch a glass of water. By that time, P.W. 3, the other doctor, had come and is sitting in the next chair. P.W. 2 complains to P.W. 3 about the strange bitterness in the tongue, aspirin being tasteless. He gargles his mouth, washes his face with water and asks the attended to buy some beatle leaves, apparently to overcome the bad taste." Thereafter he proceeds to his normal work and tries to give injection to a patient waiting, but begins to feel shaky. Within a few minutes P.W. 2 has the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to bring aspirin and he in turn told the accused that Doctor Saheb had wanted two 'purias' of aspirin, whereupon the accused told Badri that aspirin packets were kept ready there and he had better take them out and give to the doctor. In short, he disconnected himself from the doctor's request for aspirin or the delivery of the two packets of medicine. The further answer of the accused was that P.W. 3 merely asked him where the bottle of aspirin was and not where the bottle of aspirin from which he gave the packet to P.W. 2 was. That is to say, the incriminating component of that part of the testimony of P.W. 3 is denied by the accused. He denies again that he told P.W. 3 that there was no strychnine in stock while, as a fact, 4.2 grams thereof were found in the store room. He suggests an answer to why such a case should have been started against him that it is due to the grudge P.W. 3, Dr. Baijal, bore against him. In this context, it is meaningful to note that before the Committal Court he took a patently false stand, namely, that P.W. 2 had neither asked him for aspirin nor had he dispensed any to him. Indeed, he has resorted to an audacious plea that "purias ar ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... irin Purias already prepared and accidently that Puria was taken by Dr. Sen Gupta. 11. Not content with these freak conjectures, the learned Sessions Judge fancies that had the accused an intention against his victim, he would have given him ten grains of strychnine which would have knocked him down at once since one part of strychnine in 7000 parts of water would have made the whole quantity bitter and even half a grain of strychnine could have been a fatal dose. On the question of motive, the Sessions Judge has again made mistakes, and as for the long interval for supplying the packets, the Judge has a convenient personal theory: Anyone who has any experience of how a dispenser works at a hospital knows that they are neither very prompt nor very efficient. After all Dr. Sen Gupta was only having a headache and there was no immediate urgency. 12. We could easily illustrate more of this species but desist from doing so as it is unnecessary. All that we need say is that a court is not concerned with fantastic possibilities but with practical realities. 13. The learned Judges of the High Court have set the record straight, if we may say. so. They have come to the conclusion that ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... conjecture into a conviction. 16. Every evidentiary circumstance is a probative link, strong or weak, and must be made out with certainty. Link after link forged firmly by credible testimony may form a strong chain of sure guilt binding the accused. Each link taken separately may just suggest but when hooked on to the next and on again may manacle the accused inescapably. Only then can a concatenation of incriminating facts suffice to convict a man. Short of that is insufficient. 17. The question then is whether the cumulative effect of the guilt-pointing circumstances in the present case is such that the court can conclude, not that the accused may be guilty but that he must be guilty. We must here utter a word of caution about this mental sense of 'must' lest it should be confused with exclusion of every contrary possibility. We have in S.S. Robade v. State of Maharashtra [1973] 2 SCC 801 explained that proof beyond reasonable doubt cannot be distorted into a doctrine of acquittal when any delicate or remote doubt flits past a feeble mind. These observations are warranted by frequent acquittals on flimsy possibilities which are not infrequently set aside by the High Co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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