The accused can be convicted on conclusions drawn from the totality of circumstances surrounding a crime, despite contradictions and omissions in evidence submitted by the prosecution, the Supreme Court has held.
“Involvement of all the accused persons to commit the offence must be determined having regard to the entirety of the situation and the materials brought on record,” a bench of Justices S B Sinha and Markandeya Katju observed, while upholding the conviction of a man and his father for the death of the former’s wife.
The dead woman’s mother-in-law Shakti Sundari and brother in-law Nityananda, who were also charged for the crime, died during the trial. According to the parents of the dead woman named Babukala, who was married to Gouranga Mohan, she was allegedly done to death by her husband and in-laws on February 3, 1994 at her matrimonial home in West Bengal’s in Burdawan district after being subjected to prolonged torture.
A sessions court convicted Mohan to imprisonment for eight years and the father-in-law to five years.
In the apex court, the accused took the plea that there was no evidence to prove that the woman was administered poison as the forensic report was unusually delayed, nor was there any proof to establish that Babukala had consumed poison due to alleged constant harassment. It was claimed that Mohan did not live with his wife at the village.
The SC noted that there was other circumstantial and material evidence like the intervention of the local panchayat to end the harassment, failure to render medical aid to Babukala who was suffering from a skin disease, and the statement of Biuthika Paul, a close friend to whom the woman confided about her harassment, all of which corroborated the prosecution’s theory.
The court pointed out that the death occurred on the verandah of the house at 7.30 am and the defence’s plea that the woman committed suicide was unconvincing as a person commits suicide only at a secluded place.

Raheja’s plea
The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition by real estate developer Gopal L Raheja, who sought a direction to halt work on a Rs 45-crore five-star hotel project being developed by his cousin Vijay B Raheja along with Marriot International in Bangalore.
A bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat refused to stop the construction of the hotel and directed the Bombay High Court to dispose off the matter by October. Gopal had contended that he was originally suppose to be a 50 per cent stakeholder in a company set up for the project, but Vijay sidelined him ad entered into an identical agreement with another developer.