On December 23, an Allahabad High Court division bench comprised of Justice Suneet Kumar and Justice Syed Waiz Mian explained that removing the corpse of a murdered man from the scene of the murder to another location does not fall within the ambit of Section 201 IPC because the removal does not result in the disappearance of evidence of the commission of the murder. 

Noting that an offense under Section 201 I.P.C. requires the disappearance of some evidence of the commission of the offence, the bench stated:

"Section 201 looks upon a person giving false information with intent to screen an offender as an accessory after the fact and makes him culpable as an offender committing an offence against public justice. Section 201 will apply only when the false information touching the offence with intent to screen the offender is given to those interested in bringing the offender to justice." 

The bench held that, while partially allowing a criminal appeal filed by a murder convict under Section 201 I.P.C., the Court upheld his conviction under Section 302. 

Concerning his conviction under Section 201 IPC, the Court noted at the outset that there was no evidence on record to show that the appellant/accused had concealed the deceased's dead body or the identity of the deceased.

The Court also noted that the fact that the deceased was killed by strangulation was confessed by the appellant/accused himself, and thus it was not a case in which the appellant/accused tried to shield himself from legal punishment or misled the informant or anyone, and that there was no evidence to establish that the appellant caused any evidence of the commission of crime, i.e. murder, to vanish. 

In light of this, the Court ruled that the accused's conviction under this section was incorrect.

Concerning the charges under Section 302 IPC, the Court noted that the accused had not denied taking the deceased from the house to the field to collect the fodder, nor did he raise the defence that the deceased had parted company on his way from Ashok's house to the sugar cane field. 

The Court also noted that the prosecution had proven that the deceased was last seen with the accused, and thus it was the accused's responsibility to explain what happened to the deceased after he was last seen with him by prosecution witnesses.

However, the Court noted that the Accused had failed to explain a fact that was within his special knowledge, as required by Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act. 

As a result, the Court upheld his conviction under Section 302 IPC after concluding that the prosecution had successfully completed the chain of circumstances. His conviction under Section 201, however, was overturned.

Case title: Gulam Rashul vs. State of U.P.
Citation: JAIL APPEAL No. - 7291 of 2017

Link: https://elegalix.allahabadhighcourt.in/elegalix/WebDownloadJudgmentDocument.do