Skip to main content

Burden is on accused to prove facts which is within his knowledge

In Dharmaraj v. State, the High Court of Madras held that Burden is on accused to prove facts which is within his knowledge.

Appellant in present appeal is sole accused in Sessions Case, on file of Sessions Judge. He stood charged for an offence under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). Trial Court, by judgement convicted Appellant/accused for offence under Section 302 of IPC, and sentenced him to undergo life imprisonment for each count and to pay a fine. Trial Court also directed sentences imposed on Appellant/accused to run consecutively. Challenging said conviction and sentence, Appellant/Accused is before this Court with present appeal.

It is a case of triple murder. Deceased are closely related to Accused. So far as motive for murder is concerned, P.W.1 has stated that, accused wanted to marry Deceased-3, for which Deceased-1 and D-3 Chandra opposed and in order to take revenge, he took all deceased to house of D-3 and murdered them, brutally. It is crystal clear that, Accused was staying along with deceased persons at time of occurrence, in house of D-3. Prosecution clearly established motive for murder of deceased.

Conduct of accused creates doubt. After seeing dead bodies, naturally, conduct of a normal person would be to immediately inform same to police or to their relatives. Even according to Accused (D.W.1), he did not inform any body and there is no acceptable explanation from accused for the same. Hence, conduct of accused is one of vital link supporting prosecution case. Apart from that, it is consistent evidence of P.Ws. 1, 2 and 9 that, all of them saw accused, coming out of house of D-3 with bloodstained knife and also found blood stained dhoti. P.W.5 is driver of a Jeep. In his evidence, he has stated that, he took accused in his jeep and dropped him near Panchayat Office. Subsequently, based on disclosure statement of the accused, M.O.1 Aruval has been recovered.

Admittedly, even as per his own evidence, at time of occurrence, he was present in house of D-3 Chandra. Even according to his evidence, all deceased and accused alone were in that house. Hence, under Section 106 of Evidence Act, 1872, burden is on accused to prove facts which is within his knowledge. Even though it is a rebuttable presumption, accused did not discharge said burden. It is one of vital circumstance against Accused. Prosecution has proved guilt of accused beyond reasonable doubt.

Regarding sentences imposed, considering age of Accused and also fact that, he is a poor man and also considering all mitigating and aggravating circumstances, instead of directing accused to undergo sentences, consecutively, Court directed him to undergo sentences, concurrently and partly allowed the appeal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/
Post a Comment
Read more

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...
Post a Comment
Read more