Govind Mandavi vs State of Chattisgarh

(v) – One B was killed by masked persons – FIR was registered – A perusal of FIR makes it clear that informant-PW-1 was not an eye-witness to the incident; rather, his knowledge of the occurrence was entirely based on the information furnished to him by PW-2, his daughter-in-law and wife of the deceased B – After four days of the incident, PW-2 recorded her statement u/s.161 CrPC and for the first time it was alleged by her that that during the assault being made on her husband, the mask of one of the assailants came off and thus, she was able to identify the said assailant as being the appellant – The Investigating Officer, PW-14, apprehended the accused-appellant as well as the two co-accused – Recoveries were effected based on their disclosure/memorandum statements – Accused-appellant was subjected to TIP and allegedly identified by PW-2 – The trial Judge proceeded to convict and sentence all the three accused persons – The High Court affirmed the conviction of the accused-appellant while setting aside the conviction of the remaining two co-accused – Correctness: Held: A very significant fact which remains undisputed is regarding the prior enmity between the prosecution witnesses (PW-1 and PW-2) and the accused-appellant herein – It is an admitted position that during the subsisting marriage of PW-2 with the deceased-B, he married PW-6, the sister of the present accused-appellant, and serious differences had arisen between the parties owing to this relationship – In FIR, there is a material omission of a known accused’s name in the FIR despite the eyewitness having allegedly identified him and same is a fatal flaw as it goes to the very root of the matter – The belated introduction of the accused appellant’s name in PW-2’s 161 CrPC statement appears to be a clear manipulation – PW-2 had, actually, named the accusedappellant in that statement, there was absolutely no justification for conducting a TIP of the accused-appellant at her instance, particularly as she admittedly knew the accused from earlier, the accused-appellant being the brother of PW-6 – Once the fact of identification of the accused-appellant by the witness PW-2 is eschewed from consideration, there remains no credible evidence on record to connect the appellant with the crime – None of the recovered articles tested positive for any particular blood group, and hence, the same cannot be connected with the crime – Thus, the accused appellant is acquitted of the charges. [Paras 28, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48]