ANANT CHINTAMAN LAGU versus THE STATE OF BOMBAY

Citation: [1960] 2 S.C.R. 460 · Decided: 14-12-1959 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.K. DAS · Disposal: Dismissed

Cited by 3 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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, SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1960(2)] 
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ANANT CHINTAMAN LAGU 
v. 
THE STATE OF BOMBAY 
~ (S. ·K. DAs,' A. K. SARKAR and M. liIDAYATULLAH, JJ.) 
Criminal Law-Murder by poisoning-Circumstantial evidence 
-Poison not detecteiJ,in body of deceased-Conduct of accused, both 
before and aft_er-Conviction for murder. 
At the trial of a person for murder by alleged poisoning, the 
fact of death by poisoning is provable by circumstantial evidence, 
notwithstanding that the autopsy as well as the chemical analysis 
fail to disclose any poison; though the cause of death may not 
appear to be established by direct evidence, the medical evidence 
of experts and the circumstances of the case may be sufficient to 
infer that the death must be the result of the administration to 
the victim of some nnrecognised poison or drug which acts as a 
poison, and a conviction can be rested on circumstantial evidence 
provided that it is so decisive ,that the court can unhesitatingly 
hold that the death was not a natural one. 
Per S. K. Das and !\I. Hidayatullah, JJ -Where the evidence, 
showed that the appellant who was the medical adviser of the 
deceased, deliberately set about·first to ingrath1te himself in the 
good opinions of his patient and becoming her confidant, found 
out all about her affairs and gradually began managing her affairs, 
that all the time he was planning to get at her property and had 
forged her signature on a dividend warrant and had, obtained 
undated cheque from her and then under the guise of helping 
her to have a consultation with a specialist in Bombay took hei; 
in a train,, and then brought the patient unconscious to a hospital 
bereft of all property with which she had started from home and 
gave a wrong name to cover her identity and wrong history of 
her ailments, that after her death he abandoned the body to be 
dealt with by the hospital as an unclaimed body, spread the story 
, that she was alive and made use of the situation to misappropriate 
all her properties, and that he tried by all means to avoid post-
mortem examination and . when questioned gave false and 
conflicting statements, held that if the deceased died in circum-
. stances which prima facie admit of either disease or homicide by 
poisoning,one must look at the conduct of the appellant both 
, before and after the death of the deceased, that the corpus delicti 
could be held to be proved by a number of facts which render 
the commission of the crime certain, and that the medical 
evidence in the case and the conduct of the appellant unerringly 
pointed to th,e conclusion that the death of the deceased was the 
result of the administration of some unrecognised poison or drug 
which would act as a poison and that the , appellant was the 
person who administered it. 
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S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
461 
Per Sarkar, J.-If it could be established in this case that 
the deceased had died an unnatural death, the,conclusion would 
be inevitable that unnatural death had been ·brought about by 
poison, but the circumstances were not such that from them the 
onlv reasonable conclusion to be dra\vn \vas that the deceased 
died an unnatural death. Held, that the prosecution had failed 
to prm·e the guilt of the appellant. 
-
Regina v. Onufrejczyk, [1955] I Q.B. 388,_ The King v. Horry, 
[1952] N.Z.L. III, Mary Ann Nash's case, (r9n) 6 Cr. App. R. 225 
an~ Donna/l's case, (r8r7) 2 C.&K. 308n, considered and relied on. 
CRDIINAL 
APPELLATE 
J URISDICTIO::<r: 
Criminal. 
Appeal No. 73of1~59. 
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and 
order dated January 16/20th, 1959, of the Bombay 
High Court in Confirmation case No. 25 of 1958 with 
Criminal Appeal No. 1372of1958, arising out of the 
judgment and order dated October 27, l!J58, of the 
Sessions Judge, Poona, in Sessions Case No. 52 of le58. 
A. S. R .. Ghari, s: N. Andley, J. B. Dadachanji. and 
Rameshwar Nath, for the appellant. 
H. N. Seeri-ai, Advocate-General for the State ·of 
Bombay, Porus A .. JJJehta and R.H. Dhebar, for· the 
respondent. 
1959. December 14. The Judgment of S. K. Das 
and Hidayatullah, JJ., was delivered by Hidaya-
tullah, J. Sarkar; J., delivered a separate Judgment. 
'959. 
Ansnl 
Chintaman Lagu 
v. 
The State of 
Bombay 
HIDAYATULLAII J.-This appeal by special leave is Hidaya1u11aA J. 
against the judgment of the Bombay High Court 
[J.C. Shah, J. (now of the Supreme Cour

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