Page 1 Non-reportable

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1098 OF 2012

RAJVINDER SINGH …. Appellant

Versus

STATE OF HARYANA …. Respondent

J U D G M E N T

Uday Umesh Lalit, J.

1. This appeal by special leave challenges the judgment and order

dated 12.12.2011 passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana

dismissing Criminal Appeal No.800-DB of 2007 and thereby

confirming the conviction and sentence of the appellant for the

offences under Sections 364, 302 and 201 of the I.P.C.

2. One Ms. Pushpa Verma, an unmarried lady, after retiring from

her job as Head Mistress in the year 1993, was residing at Karnal.

She had set up a marriage bureau and also used to work as a property

Page 2 dealer. Her two married sisters were also residing at Karnal. Two

sons of one of the sisters were practicing advocates. Brother of

Pushpa Verma named Chander Prakash had retired as Executive

Engineer and was residing at Hissar. Pushpa Verma owned properties

at Panipat and Gurgaon allotted through Haryana Urban Development

Authority (HUDA for short).

3.The appellant stands convicted for the offences of kidnapping

Pushpa Verma and thereafter murdering her and for destroying the

evidence by throwing her body in a canal. He is sentenced to life

imprisonment and payment of fine of Rs.10,000/- for the offence

under Section 302 I.P.C. and to rigorous imprisonment for five years

and payment of fine of Rs.5,000/- in default whereof to undergo

further rigorous imprisonment for six months under Section 364 I.P.C.

and to rigorous imprisonment for five years and payment of fine of

Rs.5,000/-, in default whereof to undergo further rigorous

imprisonment for six months under Section 201 I.P.C. All the

sentences are to run concurrently. The conviction and sentence as

recorded by the trial court has been affirmed by the High Court in the

judgment under appeal.

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Page 3 4.The instant matter has genesis in Daily Diary Report (Ext. PA)

lodged with Police Post, Sector 13, Karnal, by Chander Prakash on

16.03.2003 giving “missing report” about his sister Pushpa Verma.

According to the report, she was missing since 20/22 January, 2003

and had not been receiving any calls since then. The follow-up action

on this report indicates that information was sent to all the districts

and all the police stations were intimated through wireless. On

18.05.2003 Chander Prakash moved an application (Ext. PC) for

registration of an offence against the appellant stating that he

suspected that the appellant wanted to grab her plots at Panipat and

Gurgaon by preparing forged documents and that he had kidnapped

her or murdered her. This reporting led to registration of FIR No.144

dated 18.05.2003 with Police Station Civil Lines, Karnal under

Section 364 I.P.C. against the appellant.

5.After due investigation, charge-sheet was filed against the

appellant for the offences punishable under Sections 364, 302 and 201

I.P.C. in the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Karnal and the

appellant was tried for aforesaid offences in Sessions Case No.53 of

2005. During investigation the body of Pushpa Verma could not be

recovered nor was there any eye-witness to the actual act of

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Page 4 kidnapping or murder. The prosecution mainly relied upon following

circumstances to bring home the charges against the accused:

A.The documents pertaining to properties of Pushpa Verma at

Panipat and Gurgaon showed that general powers of attorney

were allegedly executed in favour of the appellant, on the basis

of which he had entered into transactions in respect of properties

at Panipat and Gurgaon and had pocketed the consideration.

The transactions as placed on record were as under:-

a. On 26.09.2002 a general power of attorney Ext.

PF-1 was allegedly executed by Pushpa Verma in favour

of the appellant in respect of her property at Panipat.

Though she was resident of Karnal and the property was

at Panipat, this general power of attorney was executed

and registered with the office of the Sub-Registrar at

Delhi. This document empowered the appellant with all

rights including power to dispose of the property at

Panipat.

b.On 08.11.2002 the appellant sold away the

property at Panipat for Rs.12.5 Lakhs. The property was

an industrial plot of 1050 square meters at Panipat and

the entire consideration was received by the appellant in

cash. It appears that there were dues in respect of penalty

for not having constructed upon within the prescribed

period, which were got cleared by the appellant.

c.On 12.11.2002 a Will (Ext. PG-1) was allegedly

executed by said Pushpa Verma in favour of the appellant

in respect of her Gurgaon property. On the next day i.e.

13.11.2002 a general power of attorney was allegedly

executed with respect to Gurgaon property in favour of

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Page 5 the appellant. The Will and the general power of attorney

were also executed and registered with the office of the

Sub-Registrar at Delhi.

d.On 24.01.2003 an agreement (Mark PH) was

entered into under which the appellant agreed to transfer

Gurgaon property in favour of prospective purchasers

and received part consideration of Rupees 2.5 Lakhs

(Rupees 1.5 Lakhs in cash while Rupees One Lakhs by

way of a cheque in the name of the appellant himself).

On 24.03.2003, further sum of Rupees Three Lakhs was

received by the appellant and endorsement to that effect

was made on the agreement itself.

e.On 31.03.2003 a demand draft of Rupees Five

Thousand towards the fees for seeking permission to

transfer Gurgaon property was taken out and enclosed

along with the application (Ext. PJ) seeking permission to

transfer that property. This application was preferred by

the appellant in his capacity as general power of attorney

and was received in the office of HUDA on 03.04.2003.

f.It appears that the signatures of Pushpa Verma on

the general power of attorney submitted by the appellant

did not tally with her original signatures available on

record with HUDA and a letter to that effect was

dispatched on 07.04.2003. This was followed by another

letter dated 24.04.2003 (Ext. PH) by HUDA addressed to

Pushpa Verma with a copy to the appellant asking her to

remain present personally in the office in connection with

her application seeking permission to transfer.

B.PW 22 Harsh Vardhan, Handwriting expert was examined who

opined that the signatures of Pushpa Verma on aforementioned

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Page 6 documents do not tally with the specimen signatures taken from

the available record with her bank.

C.The consideration received in respect of the aforesaid

transactions was never credited to the account of Pushpa Verma.

D.S.P. Meena, Sub-Registrar, Delhi was examined as PW 10. The

relevant portion of his testimony is as under:

“After the document is written the receipt for the

fee is issued by the clerk concerned the document is

presented before another clerk who verifies the document

and the attestation of the witnesses and parties and

initials the photographs and affixes seals and fills in the

blanks in the seal, the document after his signature is

presented before me. Thereafter I sign the documents on

the faith of the clerk concerned. Documents Ext. PG and

Ext. PG/1 is power of attorney and will respectively were

presented before me by Naresh Kumar, Clerk after

initialing at point ‘A’ in Ext. PG and at point ‘B’ in Ext

PG/1 signed these documents.

Thereafter the documents were entered in the register of

the registration maintained in our office. I have seen my

signatures at points ‘B’ and Ext. PG and at points ‘C’ in

Ext. PG/1. These signatures are mine. The person who

executes the document and in whose favour it is executed

do not appear before me. I have been working in this

manner from 26.07.2000 to 13.11.2002 as Sub-Registrar

and attested the documents.”

E.On 21.05.2003 the appellant made an extra judicial confession

to PW16 Sunil Rana advocate who later took the appellant to

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Page 7 the police and caused his arrest. The appellant confessed that

Pushpa Verma was known to him for more than a year, that he

started meeting her often, that she started treating him as her

son, that having come to know that she owned properties at

different places he had become greedy, that he had given her

some sedative in her tea, taken her to Delhi and got her

signatures on the General power of attorney, that he sold away

property at Panipat but kept all the money with himself and that

he again took her to Delhi and got another general power of

attorney executed in respect of Gurgaon plot. It was further

confessed that in the month of January the appellant felt that

Pushpa Verma suspected some foul play and therefore the

appellant plotted a scheme to finish her. On 23.01.2003 she

expressed desire to visit Haridwar, on which pretext he took her

in a car and after having administered a sedative, throttled her

and while she was unconscious near Roorkee, threw her body in

a canal known as Gang Canal in between villages Liverheri and

Mangalore.

F.After the arrest of the appellant, voter identity card Ext. P-12 of

Pushpa Verma was recovered from the bushes near Gang Canal

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Page 8 where her dead body was thrown. Such recovery was in

pursuance of the disclosure statement of the appellant under

Section 27 of the Evidence Act. In order to prove this part, the

prosecution relied upon the testimony of PW 12 Mahir Hussain,

Photographer and the testimony of PW 19 Investigating Officer

Vijay Anand.

G.Pursuant to the disclosure statement of the appellant, a gold ring

bearing inscription “PV” was also recovered from the house of

the appellant. The evidence in that behalf was available

through PW5 Muktiyar Singh and PW6 Ashok Sharma.

6.In defence, the appellant examined four witnesses. It was

projected that an unidentified dead body of a woman was found in the

agricultural fields in District Muzaffar Nagar, U.P. on 22.01.2003.

The photograph of the dead body taken by the police was produced in

this trial and marked as DB. One Brahmpal Singh, Sub-Inspector,

Saharanpur was also examined as Defence witness who stated that he

had prepared Inquest proceedings regarding the dead body and

thereafter the investigation was conducted by SSI Rajinder Beer

Singh. By examining these witnesses it was submitted that the dead

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Page 9 body so found in Muzaffar Nagar on 22.01.2003 was in fact that of

Pushpa Verma. The trial court rejected this defence. Relying upon

the circumstances as culled out hereinabove, the trial court found that

the case against the appellant was completely proved by the

prosecution. The trial court, thus, awarded the sentence as stated

hereinabove.

7.The appellant carried the matter further by filing Criminal

Appeal No.800-DB/2007 in the High Court. During the pendency of

this appeal, the appellant filed CRM No.52692 of 2008 along with

documents pertaining to a case registered against one Suresh under

Section 25 of the Arms Act. Copy of the General Diary pertaining to

investigation of said crime was also filed which contained statement

of said accused Suresh according to which Suresh and one Baljeet had

taken Pushpa Verma from Karnal in a car, that Baljeet had

strangulated her and that thereafter they both had thrown her dead

body in sugar-cane fields. The record as filed did not indicate whether

any case under Section 302 IPC was registered against said Baljeet

and Suresh. The appellant also filed a report of a privately engaged

Forensic Expert stating that the photograph of the dead body of the

lady found in Muzaffar Nagar was that of Pushpa Verma. Relying on

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Page 10 these materials, the appellant submitted an application under Section

391 Cr.P.C. praying that additional evidence be recorded at the

appellate stage. The High Court directed that these applications be

considered along with the appeal itself.

8.The High Court considered the matter and the circumstantial

evidence placed on record. It found that the signatures of Pushpa

Verma on the documents in question were a crude attempt at imitation

and in one of the documents, namely, Will Ext. PG-1, the signature

was “Puspha Verma” instead of normal signature being “Pushpa

Verma”. The High Court found that the case against the appellant

stood completely established. As regards application under Section

391 Cr.P.C., it was observed that the appellant had taken the defence

that the dead body recovered in Muzaffar Nagar was actually that of

Pushpa Verma and in such circumstances it was imperative for him to

have examined the expert in his defence at the trial court stage itself

and that the report of the privately engaged Forensic Expert at such

belated stage could not be allowed to be taken on record. The High

Court thus dismissed the appeal affirming the conviction and sentence

of the appellant.

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Page 11 9.This judgment of the High Court is presently under appeal. Crl.

Miscellaneous Petition No.10525 of 2012 was filed in the present

matter seeking leave to bring on record additional documents which

include the order of conviction in so far as aforementioned Suresh is

concerned under Section 25 of the Arms Act as well as deposition of

the very same Sub Registrar S.P. Meena in Civil Suit No.142 of 2009.

Said Civil Suit was filed by Chander Prakash against the present

appellant seeking to invalidate the transactions allegedly entered into

by Pushpa Verma. In that suit S.P. Meena, Sub- Registrar was

examined as his witness by the appellant. His deposition now states

that he had read over the contents of the general power of attorney and

the Will to Pushpa Verma and after understanding the same she had

signed in the presence of said S.P. Meena.

10.Mr. Brijender Chahar, learned Senior Advocate appearing for

the appellant submitted that none of the aforesaid circumstances were

proved and in any event these circumstances do not form a complete

chain excluding every other hypothesis except the guilt of the

appellant. It was submitted that the dead body of Pushpa Verma was

never recovered from Gang Canal or thereabouts. On the other hand a

dead body of an unidentified female was found in agricultural fields in

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Page 12 District Muzaffar Nagar and FIR No.427-12 of 2003 was registered

against unknown persons at Police Station Nai Mandi, Muzaffar

Nagar. It was submitted that the High Court ought to have allowed

the prayer for leading additional evidence at the appellate stage. It was

accepted that the documents referred to above had given the appellant

full authority to dispose of the properties of Pushpa Verma and that

the appellant had entered into transactions in question. It was

however submitted that all the payments that he had received were

made over to Pushpa Verma and that an attaché kept with one Ram

Kishore was taken by son of the complainant. The attaché used to

contain valuable securities of Pushpa Verma and was kept with Ram

Kishore with instructions to hand over to her relations in case

anything were to happen to her. It was suggested that the money

received in cash must have been kept in that attaché. Mr. Devender

Kumar Saini, learned Additional Advocate General appearing for the

State submitted that the concurrent view taken by the trial court and

the High Court did not call for any interference and the appeal be

dismissed.

11. At the outset, we must deal with submissions as regards

application for leading additional evidence at the appellate stage. It

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Page 13 has been the consistent defence of the appellant that the dead body

found in agricultural fields in District Muzaffar Nagar was that of

Pushpa Verma and he went to the extent of producing photograph of

the dead body in the present trial. He also examined Brahm Pal

Singh, Sub-Inspector and other witnesses. It was certainly possible to

examine Forensic Expert at the trial court stage itself and the High

Court was right and justified in rejecting the prayer to lead additional

evidence at the appellate stage. Nonetheless, we have gone through

the report of said Forensic Expert engaged by the appellant. The

exercise undertaken by that expert is to start with the admitted

photograph of Pushpa Verma on a computer, then remove the “bindi”

by some process on the computer, then by same process remove her

spectacles and by computer imaging change the image as it would

have looked if the lady was lying down in an injured condition. The

computer image so changed was then compared with the photograph

of the dead body. We have seen both the images and we are not

convinced at all about any element of similarity. We do not therefore

see any reason to differ from the view taken by the High Court.

12. In the submissions of Mr. Brijender Chahar, learned Senior

Advocate the circumstances E, F and G as culled out in paragraph 5

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Page 14 hereinabove were not proved at all and the transactions were

completely genuine. It was submitted that it is impossible to believe

that the Voter Identity Card of Pushpa Verma could be recovered from

the bushes four months after the incident. Similarly the recovery of

gold ring was also questioned. Further, it was submitted that there

was no evidence that the ring in question was that of Pushpa Verma.

Mr. Chahar may be right so far as recovery of Voter Identity Card is

concerned but the recovery of gold ring with inscription ‘PV;

recovered from the house of the appellant is definitely a relevant

circumstance. The ring after recovery was given under a panchnama

to Abhishek Dewan, son of Chander Prakash. No explanation has

been given as to how the appellant came into possession of said gold

ring. As regards the extra judicial confession made to PW 16 Sunil

Rana, the documents allegedly executed by Pushpa Verma and the

progression of events including the transactions completely

substantiate the case and we have no hesitation in accepting the

evidence in that behalf.

13.The transactions as referred to above have been admitted by the

appellant. We have seen the signatures alleged to have been put by

Pushpa Verma on said documents. We have compared the signatures

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Page 15 and find the view taken by the High Court in that behalf to be correct.

It is impossible and inconceivable that a lady who had retired as head

mistress would mis-spell her own name while putting signatures. The

flow of signature as evident from the admitted source is completely of

a different nature. The signatures on the documents in question, to a

naked eye, cannot be that of Pushpa Verma. Further, there is no

reason why a lady who has two sisters and two Advocate nephews

staying in same town, would give power of attorney and execute a

Will in favour of a total stranger. These circumstances are clinchingly

against the appellant. His assertion that he had made over the

payments received in cash to Pushpa Verma is not supported by any

material on record. In fact, the appellant kept receiving payments

even in the month of March, 2003. None of the payments are

reflected in the account of Pushpa Verma. Receipt of Rs.1,00,000/- by

way of cheque in the name of appellant himself is also a circumstance

against the appellant. The evidence thus shows that the appellant had

fabricated the documents in question and was attempting to defraud

Pushpa Verma, as stated in the extra judicial confession. Further, by

Ext. PH addressed to Pushpa Verma, a copy of which was sent to the

appellant, she was asked to remain personally present in the office of

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Page 16 HUDA. There is nothing on record to show that the appellant had

undertaken any attempt, if he was genuinely acting as power of

attorney on her behalf. We are satisfied that the circumstances on

record, even if we were to disregard that relating to the recovery of

Voter Identity Card Ext.P-12, do suggest only one hypothesis and that

is the guilt of the appellant. The defence set up by the appellant does

not inspire any confidence and merits rejection. The appeal, therefore

fails and is dismissed.

14. Before we part, we must deal with the conduct of PW10 S.P.

Meena. As Sub-Registrar, it was expected of him and was

fundamental part of his duty to see that the persons who are entering

into transactions must appear before him in person and the documents

would be registered only after the essential formalities were

undertaken. His evidence in the present case shows rank dereliction

of duty. Add to it, his attempt to strike a different chord in the private

proceedings is also questionable. He appeared as witness for the

appellant and took a contradictory stand on oath. Such conduct must

be dealt with strictly so that the matters of registration continue to

have confidence in the eyes of people. We therefore recommend

suitable action against said PW10 S.P. Meena and direct the

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Page 17 authorities to initiate proceedings in that behalf. A copy of this

judgment be sent to the Supervisors in the office where he was

working as Sub-Registrar, Pitampura, Delhi.

15.The appeal is disposed of in the afore-mentioned terms.

………………………………..

……J.

(Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla)

………………………………..……J.

(Uday Umesh Lalit)

New Delhi,

October 16, 2015

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