SUPREME COURT OF INDIA 

PREM vs STATE OF NCT DELHI CRL-A 1/23 02/01/23 [ DINESH JJ ]

_• *Sections 302 and 201 IPC Indian Evidence Act Section 106 Motive When the evidence on record unambiguously proves the guilt of the accused, the factor relating to motive cannot displace or weaken the conclusions naturally flowing from the evidence Held that when all the facts and circumstances are taken together, the present one is not a case where there had been any missing link in the chain of circumstances, leading only to the conclusion of the guilt of the appellant – Trial Court and the High Court concurrently recorded that the appellant is guilty of the offence of murder of the victim children, his sons, as also the offence of causing disappearance of evidence – No infirmity in the findings.

17. Taking all the facts and factors together, the chain of circumstances leading only to the hypothesis of the guilt of the appellant has been duly visualised and analysed by the Trial Court as also by the High Court. That being the position, learned counsel for the appellant has endeavoured to submit that an important link in the chain of circumstances, i.e., motive, has not been established and in that regard, reliance has particularly been placed on the statement of the wife of the appellant PW-9 Sunita Yadav, who did not support the prosecution allegations about strained relationship of the appellant and herself.
17.1. As noticed, motive, when proved, supplies additional link in the chain of circumstantial evidence but, absence thereof cannot, by itself, be a ground to reject the prosecution case; although absence of motive in a case based on circumstantial evidence is a factor that weighs in favour of the accused.
17.2. The question of motive in the present case, in our view, cannot be examined only with reference to the testimony of the wife of the appellant who has, even while admitting that she left the children in the company of the appellant and thereafter heard only about their demise, chosen not to support the accusations against the appellant. However, her testimony is contradicted by at least three prosecution witnesses with two of them, PW- 7 Mahender Kumar Yadav and PW-8 Rajender Yadav being her uncles, who maintained that there were strained relations of the appellant and his wife and that the appellant doubted the character of his wife as also the paternity of the children. Even PW-5 Bishan Singh, brother of the appellant, though attempted to depose against the prosecution case but indeed testified to the fact that there had been strains in the relationship of the appellant and his wife. The submission that strained relationship of appellant with his wife may not provide sufficient motive for killing the children cannot be accepted for the reason that the motive projected in the present case had been that the appellant doubted the paternity of the deceased children and suspected that they were not his sons.

17.3. We are clearly of the view that when the evidence on record unambiguously proves the guilt of the accused-appellant, the factor relating to motive cannot displace or weaken the conclusions naturally flowing from the evidence. Moreover, the present case cannot be said to be of want of motive altogether. Differently put, in our view, when all the facts and circumstances are taken together, the present one is not a case where there had been any missing link in the chain of circumstances, leading only to the conclusion of the guilt of the appellant.

18. As noticed, the Trial Court and the High Court have concurrently recorded the findings that the prosecution has been able to establish the chain of circumstances leading to the conclusion that the appellant is guilty of the offence of murder of the victim children, his sons, as also the offence of causing disappearance of evidence. There appears no infirmity in the findings so recorded.