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untrustworthiness of the chance witness PW-10 – his contradictions in
deposition, admission to being a stock police witness, and who by his admission
saw the accused for a very brief while, as well as the inexplicable delay in
holding TIP – together undermine the prosecution story about identification of
the accused, and their alleged role in the crime.
Submissions of the state
53.
Ms. Swarupama Chaturvedi, learned Additional Advocate General (AAG)
for the State of Madhya Pradesh, argued that this court should not disturb the
concurrent findings of the appellant’s guilt recorded by the learned Additional
Sessions Judge, and confirmed by the High Court in its impugned judgment.
She submitted that though the case is based on circumstantial evidence, the
prosecution was successful in proving beyond reasonable doubt, every
circumstance, and also in conclusively establishing the guilt of the
accused/appellants, on a cumulative reading of all circumstances. She
emphasized that the conclusive nature of the evidence is such that any
hypothesis of the appellants’ innocence is ruled out and that the only conclusion
that can be reached is that they and none others, are guilty of the crime of triple
murder, which they were charged with.
54.
Heavy reliance was placed on the findings in the ballistic report, wherein
each circumstance was proved by the expert evidence. In this regard, counsel
relied on Ex. P25, the map of the crime spot prepared by PW-31 IO which
found two fired cartridges (at Point 7) and one live bullet (at Point 6). The
bullets were seized and recorded at Ex. P27, the seizure memo. The postmortem report Ex. P44 indicated and forwarded a bullet, recovered from
Megha’s body. The recovery of this bullet was also deposed to by PW-15 Dr. P.
S. Thakur. The bullet was seized under memo Ex. P127. Likewise, PW-32 had
extracted a bullet from Rahul’s foot, in the early hours of 20.06.2011 at MY
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