Faridabad to his village in the fourwheeler. On reaching Gurgaon canal, he witnessed Sandeep and the accused taking bath in the canal. He stopped his vehicle and asked them to accompany him, if they wanted, but they did not. If the evidence of these witnesses is read in between the lines, it suggests that the entire story has been cooked up. Mukesh (PW-7) belongs to the same village to which the accused and the deceased belonged. The dead body of the deceased was found floating in the canal on June 11th, 1996, meaning thereby, on June 11th, 1996 or the next day, Mukesh must have come to know that Sandeep had died. In due course and as natural human conduct, the witness would have disclosed on June 12th, 1996 to the members of the family of the deceased or to the Police or to some other person that he had seen the deceased and the accused together on June 10th, 1996 while taking bath in the Gurgaon canal. This would have been his natural reaction to the whole situation when he had come to know that death of the deceased had taken place on June 11th, 1996. For the first time, per the story of the prosecution, he informed the Police on June 17th, 1996 that he witnessed the deceased and the accused-appellant taking bath in the canal on June 10th, 1996. In his cross-examination, he has stated that Police never recorded his statement. Clearly, it is absolutely false and frivolous on the face of it that this witness Mukesh ever saw Sandeep (deceased) and the accused together taking bath on June 10th, 1996 in the Gurgaon canal. His conduct is wholly unnatural indicating that he is a witness introduced later on. The statement of mother Bimla is also not believable because Satbir Singh (PW-12) made statement before the Police (Exhibit PF) that Sandeep had returned to the village after washing the Baan and slept in the Baithak of the father of the accused and went out
