When the offence of murder was committed in the presence of the accused in the privacy of their house, then he has the duty to give an explanation and a failure to offer an explanation can be treated as an adverse circumstance against the accused, as per Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA), says the Supreme Court (SC) in Uma & Another v The State Represented by the DySP [2024 INSC 809 ].
In the case the appellant-accused were allegedly present in the house when the deceased died but he in his Section 313 defence statement under Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) tried to take a plea of alibi and offered an explanation that he was elsewhere.
The SC relied on the case Trimukh Maroti Kirkan v State of Maharashtra [2006 (10) SCC 681]to hold that the accused owes a duty to explain the circumstances that led to the death of the deceased when the offence was committed in a privacy of the house.
References
- Uma & Another v The State Represented by the DySP [2024 INSC 809 ]
- Trimukh Maroti Kirkan v State of Maharashtra [2006 (10) SCC 681]
