Crl.A. Nos. 42-43 of 2011 1

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NOS. 42-43 of 2007

TERSEM SINGH   .....   APPELLANT

VERSUS

 STATE OF PUNJAB .....   RESPONDENT

O R D E R

 1.  These  appeals  by  way  of  special  leave  are  

directed against the concurrent findings of the Sessions  

Judge  Jalandhar  and  of  the  High  Court  of  Punjab  and  

Haryana  whereby  the  appellant  has  been  convicted  and  

sentenced to death for having murdered his wife and two  

minor children on the 21st of September, 2007.   

2. As per the prosecution story given by Piare Lal PW  

his daughter Rajwinder Kaur had been married to Tarsem  

Singh  appellant  about  twelve  years  earlier.   He  was  

present  in  his  house  in  village  Pandori,  Masharkti  

(District Jalandhar) when he received a message at about  

11:00p.m.  on  the  21st September,  2007  from  village  

Khambra that a gas cylinder had burst in his daughter's  

house  and  that   his  son-in-law  Tarsem  Singh  had

Crl.A. Nos. 42-43 of 2011 2

sustained injuries and his daughter Rajwinder Kaur and  

his  grand  sons  Harwinder  Singh  aged  8  years  and  

Gurvinder Singh aged 10 years, had been killed.  Piare  

Lal along with his wife and nephew  Makhan Singh rushed  

to  village  Khambra  and  on  examining  the  site  he  

suspected that the appellant had killed his wife and  

children by inflicting injuries on them and then setting  

them  on  fire  post  murder.   An  FIR  was,  accordingly,  

lodged at the Police Station  on the 22nd September, 2007  

in  which  he  further  stated  that  the  appellant  had  

threatened  a  few  days  earlier  that  he  would  kill  

everyone in his family.   

3. The  prosecution  placed  reliance  on  several  

witnesses  including  PW-4  Hardev  Singh  to  whom  the  

appellant had made an extra judicial confession, PW 5  

Balbir Singh who had seen him coming out of the house  

with a ghotna(pestle) and the evidence of Dr. Aman Sood  

PW-9 who had carried the post mortem examinations on the  

dead bodies and opined that the injuries on the head had  

been caused by  ghotna  and that the bodies had been  

burnt after death.  Relying on these pieces of evidence  

the  trial  court  and  the  High  Court  convicted  the  

appellant and awarded him a  death sentence.   

4. When these matters came up for hearing on the 24th  

July,  2009  notice  had  been  issued  confined  to  the  

question of sentence only and we have heard Mr. Dushyant

Crl.A. Nos. 42-43 of 2011 3

Parashar and Mr. Anil Grover, learned counsel for the  

appellant  and  the  learned  Additional  Advocate  General  

for the State of Punjab respectively on this question  

today.

5. We find that the evidence against the appellant is  

basically  that  of  extra  judicial  confession  and  last  

seen as supported by the medical evidence.  We also see  

that there is rule or law that a death sentence cannot  

be awarded in a case based on  circumstantial evidence,  

but as a matter of  prudence the courts are chary in  

awarding  a  death  sentence  in  such  cases.   We  are,  

therefore, of the opinion that the award of the death  

sentence  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case  was  not  

justified.

6. As the notice was a limited one we direct that the  

sentence  on  the  appellant  be  commuted  from  death  to  

life.   With  this  modification  in  the  sentence,  the  

appeals are dismissed.

..............................J [HARJIT SINGH BEDI]

..............................J [CHANDRAMAULI KR. PRASAD]

NEW DELHI

Crl.A. Nos. 42-43 of 2011 4

APRIL 05, 2011.