[2007] 1 MLRA Krishna Rao Gurumurthi & Anor v. PP & Another Appeal 705 submission is devoid of any merit. The first accused having elected to remain silent, the learned judge had no alternative except to convict him. [34] The second accused elected to give evidence on oath. In brief, his story was that the shop was already lying open when he and the other two accused came upon it with the burglar alarm sounding. He and the third accused entered the shop and found it in a mess. The safe was empty. He and the third accused gathered up the jewellery that they could find and placed it in a bag. They then left the shop and went to the Police Field Force Ulu Kinta to hide the bag. [35] The learned judge rejected this explanation after careful consideration. It was submitted by learned counsel that the circumstantial evidence at best only supports the inference that his client is a thief. It does not admit of an inference that he was involved in the murders. We do not agree. [36] It is settled by authority that in a case where murder and robbery or theft form an integral part of a transaction, the recent and unexplained possession of the stolen property as in the present instance is evidence from which a court may draw the inference that the accused not only committed theft but also murder. Thus, in Emperor v. Neamaulla 17 CWN 1077 Jenkins CJ, referred to s. 114 of the Indian Evidence Act and quoted the following passage from Wills on Circumstantial Evidence (7th edn): ... the possession of stolen goods recently after the loss of them, may be indicative not merely of the offence of larceny, or of receiving with guilty knowledge, but of any other more aggravated crime which has be connected with theft. This particular fact of presumption commonly forms also a material element of evidence in cases of murder; which special application of it has often been emphatically recognised. [37] In Re Sogaimuthu Padayachi AIR [1926] Mad. 638, (a case cited by the learned judge) Spencer J observed as follows: When the charge is that the accused committed murder or theft in a building or both, is it legitimate to presume that the accused are guilty of the more serious offence of murder because they are unable or unwilling to explain their possession of stolen property? I think the answer must be that if there is other evidence to connect the accused with the death of the murdered man, a jury, or in this country a Judge, may find upon circumstantial evidence that he is the murderer. But when the unexplained possession of stolen property is the only circumstance appearing in the evidence against an accused charged with murder and theft, the accused cannot be convicted of murder unless the Court is satisfied that possession of the property could not have been transferred from the deceased to the accused except by the former being murdered. [38] More recently, in Ganesh Lal v. State of Rajasthan [2002] Cr LJ 967, Lahoti J