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TMI Blog2023 (4) TMI 1356X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ticles. The materials on record in no way establish that before the commission of the offence, the accused had any common purpose, object or intention of committing the crime, without the same being borne out of the records, the charge of criminal conspiracy and of common intention which is to be read with Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, fails. The present appellant cannot be convicted of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B, Indian Penal Code, 1860, solely for having concealed the location of the incriminating materials/ articles and, in the absence of any evidence establishing meeting of the minds. Given that all the other co accused have been acquitted by the courts below, meaning they were innocent of the crime, the fundamental requirement of a criminal conspiracy is not met. The Investigating Officer did not meet the obligations he was under. As it is noticed, numerous infirmities affected the conduct of the Investigation Officer calling into question, credibly, the investigation conducted by him or upon his directions. The High Court, without appreciating the testimonies of the witnesses mentioned above in their true import and meaning, and without having any discussi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Ambikapur, in the car of PW 24, namely Prabodh Minz, where he died. That night, an FIR was registered at the P.S. Gandhi Nagar (Ex.P 37). The body was sent for a post mortem vide Memo under Ex.P 39. After due investigation, a chargesheet was filed, stating that all the accused persons, including Sunil Paswan, Pankaj Singh, and Pappu Tiwari, came together and, in agreement, committed or caused to be committed the murder of Gowardhan Aggarwal. In pursuance of the said agreement, Pappu Tiwari made available the motorcycle, Pankaj Singh conveyed the information of the deceased having departed from his office, Abhishek Singh carried Sunil Paswan and the weapons as pillion rider on the said motorcycle on the evening of 26.9.2009 at about 7:00 PM, where Sunil Paswan then shot the deceased. 4. The Learned Additional District Judge, in Session Trial No. 76/2010, seized of the trial against Sunil Paswan, Maghavendra Pratap Singh @ Pankaj Singh, Akhileshwar Pratap Singh @ Lalit Singh, and Sidkant Tiwari @ Pappu Tiwari; and in Sessions Case 166/2010, Mannu Singh @ Gyanendra Singh @ Manvendra Singh @ Abhishek Singh, Satish Tripathi, and Ganeshdutt Mishra. A total of twenty eight witnesses were ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , the High Court, while acquitting all the other convicts, namely, Satish Tripathi, Ganesh Datt Mishra, Mannu Singh, and Sunil Paswan, has confirmed the conviction and sentence awarded to Pankaj Singh as reproduced above. In doing so, the Court found the testimonies of Ashish Agrawal (PW 1), Naresh Mandal (PW6), Avinash Tirki (PW 7) and Inspector J.S. Saggu (PW 23), Investigation Officer sufficient enough to prove the guilt of Pankaj Singh warranting conviction and sentence. In paragraph 49 of its Judgment, the High Court observed as under: 49. On due consideration, the prosecution has proved entire circumstantial evidence against the appellant Madvendra. The circumstances are fully established consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and that is not explainable by any other circumstances except that appellant Madhvendra is guilty and evidence collected by the prosecution is of the conclusive nature and tendency. The chain of evidence is complete, it shows in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. The Prosecution has duly proved that appellant Madhvendra had killed Gowardhan Agrawal and was also in possession of fire arm and cartrid ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... upported the prosecution case. Despite extensive cross-examination conducted by the Public Prosecutor, nothing substantial could be elicited from their testimonies indicating any guilt of the accused. Noticeably, both the witnesses are rustic villagers working as daily wagers, have deposed to have signed blank papers, and are not residents of the area. 15. A perusal of the testimony of PW 6 unrefutably reveals the witness to have signed documents which were blank, purportedly used by the police to strengthen this case for the commission of the offence. 16. PW 6, while stating that he does not recognize the accused, admits that his signatures are on several documents. He further says that he had signed blank papers under threat from police officials. Such a statement is uncontroverted as the record does not reflect any cross examination on this issue or any other, for that matter. ` 17. We also notice that PW 7, one of the persons on whom reliance was placed by the courts below, states that he does not know the accused persons and that he had come to know from having perused newspapers that the deceased was murdered. 18. We may also observe that PW 1, namely, Ashish Agrawal, nephew ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pty 9 mm cartridges and four empty 9 mm cartridges, were recovered vide memo Ex. P 14. They were sent for analysis to the laboratory at Chandigarh. Further, his statement shows that the accused, Pankaj Singh, was arrested on 22.10.2019 vide memo Ex. P 21/P 22. 24. Now significantly, the witness (P.W. 23) admits that the statements of neither Sunil Paswan nor Pankaj Singh have been recorded by him, in his hand, or by any other named persons, under his instructions. If that were so, it raises the question as to who prepared these memos, which still needs to be answered by the prosecution. 25. Pertinent to note here is that no direct evidence is available which firmly proves the ballistic report, i.e., the expert's report. Further, neither the expert who analysed and conducted the chemical analysis nor the author of the report stand examined. 26. Statement of the Investigating Officer that appellant Pankaj Singh was called to the police station itself is uninspiring in confidence, for there is no written communication on record which reflects the same. Further, it is also not his version that he was called by any other mode or that the co accused had brought him to the police stat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... accused had any common purpose, object or intention of committing the crime, without the same being borne out of the records, the charge of criminal conspiracy and of common intention which is to be read with Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, fails. 31. For the charge of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, to be established, an agreement between the parties to do an unlawful act must exist. In some cases, direct evidence to establish conspiracy may be absent, but when the lack of evidence is apparent, it is not safe to hold a person guilty under this section. To prove the offence of criminal conspiracy, it is imperative to show a meeting of the minds between the conspirators for the intended common object. It was observed by a two judge bench of this Court in Parveen v. State of Haryana, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 1184, that A few bits here and a few bits there on which prosecution relies, cannot be held to be adequate for connecting the accused with the commission of crime of criminal conspiracy. 32. Keeping this abovesaid principle in view, we believe that the present appellant cannot be convicted of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B, Indian Pe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... oes not associate any of the residents of the area for conducting the search; (g) does not examine any of the residents for carrying out any further investigation and (h) Most importantly he admits that both the memo of arrest as also the recovery not to have been prepared by him or bearing his signature and the same too, have many corrections and over writing, thus reducing the correctness and authenticity of this document. 36. Furthermore, he is not clear about the description of the articles recovered. Illustratively, in the memo, he records one black colour scarf to have been recovered, but on a pointed query put by the Court, he admitted that not to be so but only a black cloth which undoubtedly cannot be equated to a scarf. Furthermore, there needs to be more clarity in his mind about whether the tank from where the articles were recovered was full of water. 37. It has come on record that the recovered arms and ammunition were first sent to the laboratory at Raipur and, after that, to the laboratory at Chandigarh. However, none had come forward to prove the report received from the said laboratories. Furthermore, there is nothing on the record besides any other scientific evi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . 41. This Court has in Pooja Pal v. Union of India (2016) 3 SCC 135, expounded as under for criminal investigations and its success : 96. The avowed purpose of a criminal investigation and its efficacious prospects with the advent of scientific and technical advancements have been candidly synopsised in the prefatory chapter dealing with the history of criminal investigation in the treatise on Criminal Investigation Basic Perspectives by Paul B. Weston and Renneth M. Wells: Criminal investigation is a lawful search for people and things useful in reconstructing the circumstances of an illegal act or omission and the mental state accompanying it. It is probing from the known to the unknown, backward in time, and its goal is to determine truth as far as it can be discovered in any post factum inquiry. Successful investigations are based on fidelity, accuracy and sincerity in lawfully searching for the true facts of an event under investigation and on an equal faithfulness, exactness, and probity in reporting the results of an investigation. Modern investigators are persons who stick to the truth and are absolutely clear about the time and place of an event and the measurable aspects ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to bolster up a prosecution case with such evidence as may enable the court to record a conviction but to bring out the real unvarnished truth . 44. Keeping in view the aforesaid principles and applying them to the present set of facts, we may observe that the Investigating Officer did not meet the obligations he was under. As we have noticed above, numerous infirmities affected the conduct of the Investigation Officer calling into question, credibly, the investigation conducted by him or upon his directions. Conclusion 45. In the considered opinion of the Court, the High Court, without appreciating the testimonies of the witnesses mentioned above in their true import and meaning, and without having any discussion concerning the complicity of the accused, in a perfunctory manner held the prosecution to have established the case, which is entirely circumstantial in nature, against the present appellant. Significantly, the High Court holds that the evidence reveals that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused . Inter alia, it is this finding which we find to be erroneous, for the principle of determining the guilt of the accused in a case involving circums ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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