Man awarded life imprisonment in murder case

The court sentenced Rudal, a resident of Chhapra in Bihar, relying on the statements of prosecution witnesses who had seen the convict with victim Madan Ram before he was found murdered in his house on May 23, 2011.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the convict and observed that even Rudal had admitted that he was present with the victim before his death.

Rejecting the defence counsel's argument of absence of motive, the court noted that if the entire chain of circumstantial evidence is complete, "the absence of motive is not going to snap the links in the chain of circumstance evidence."

"In the present case, the accused (Rudal) himself admitted to be present with the deceased (Ram) before his death and in view of the facts that circumstances of abscondence of an accused person is considered a strong link in the chain of circumstances evidence.

"....I consider it safe to rely upon the circumstances of abscondence of the accused after discovery of the dead body of the deceased to convict him," Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vijay Kumar Dahiya said.

The judge also relied on statement of witnesses who said that after Rudal was found in the 'jhuggi' of the deceased, he fled from there on the pretext of calling the police.

"The prosecution has proved on record that the accused was last seen together with the deceased (Ram) and in the morning of May 23, 2011. He was found present with the deceased in the jhuggi of the deceased and he was apprehended and anyhow, the accused succeeding in freeing himself and fled away from the jhuggi on the pretext of calling police," the court said.

According to the police, Rudal had strangulated Ram in a 'jhuggi' in Naraina Vihar in the night of May 22, 2011 and Ram was last seen alive in the company of the accused. (More)