BJP will form govt in 4-5 days: Yeddyurappa
Bengaluru, Jul 15: As the Congress-JDS coalition government faced uncertainty over its numbers, BJP's Karnataka unit chief B S Yeddyurappa Monday said he was confident of forming the government in the next four to five days.
Yeddyurappa's claim came on a day when the assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar fixed July 18 for taking up the confidence motion moved by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, whose government is on the verge of collapse after 16 MLAs resigned from the assembly.
"I am quite confident that BJP government will come into existence in the next three to four days. The BJP will give the best administration in Karnataka," Yeddyurappa told reporters here.
Yeddyurappa claimed Kumaraswamy would fail to save the coalition government.
"Kumaraswamy will not be able to continue as chief minister. He too knows it. I think he will quit after making a good speech (in the assembly)," Yeddyurappa, who had quit in similar circumstances early last year, said.
Yeddyurappa had stepped down as chief minister before the confidence motion was taken up for voting as he failed to muster enough numbers for the BJP which had emerged as the single largest party with 105 seats in the 224-member House.
The ruling coalition's total strength is 116 (Congress-78, JD(S)-37 and BSP-1), besides the Speaker.
With the support of the two independents, the BJP has 107 MLAs in the House, where the half-way mark is 113.
If the resignations of the 16 MLAs are accepted, the coalition's tally will be reduced to 100.
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Circumstantial evidence can be used for conviction if it leads to guilt only: SC
New Delhi(PTI): Circumstantial evidence can be used to convict an accused in a criminal case if it is of such a nature that is "consistent only with his guilt", the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
Setting aside the conviction and life sentence of a man accused in a 2004 murder case, a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra reiterated the legal principle that the "last seen together" theory alone is insufficient to sustain a conviction in cases resting entirely on circumstantial evidence.
"It is a well-established rule in criminal jurisprudence that circumstantial evidence can be made the basis of the conviction of an accused person if it is of such a character that it is wholly inconsistent with the innocence of the accused and is consistent only with his guilt," Justice Mishra, who authored the judgement, said.
The verdict said in a case that lacks direct evidence, the incriminating circumstances being used against the accused must be such as to lead only to a hypothesis of guilt and must exclude every other possibility of the innocence of the accused.
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"And if the circumstances proved against the accused, in a particular case, are consistent with the innocence of the accused, he will be entitled to the benefit of the doubt," it said.
The bench acquitted appellant Manoj alias Munna, granting him the benefit of the doubt after finding significant gaps in the prosecution's chain of evidence.
Referring to the facts of the case, the court said, "We are of the opinion that the nature of circumstantial evidence available against the appellant though raises a doubt that he may have committed the offence but the same is not so conclusive that he can be convicted only on the evidence of the last seen together (theory)."
It is a settled proposition that whenever any doubt emanates in the mind of the court, the benefit shall accrue to the accused and not the prosecution, it added.
"The present case is one where except for the evidence of last seen together, there is no other corroborative evidence against the appellant. Therefore, the conviction only on the basis of last seen together cannot be sustained," it said while setting aside the impugned judgments.
The case dates back to June 2004. The prosecution had alleged that Manoj, along with five co-accused, killed one Yuvraj Singh Patle, a tractor driver, to steal the vehicle and sell it.
The deceased was found with burn injuries and ligature marks on his neck.
While the trial court acquitted the five other co-accused, Manoj was convicted under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, primarily based on the testimony of witnesses who saw him leaving with the deceased on the evening of June 6, 2004.
The Chhattisgarh High Court upheld his conviction in 2011.
