Penal Code, 1860 – s.302 r/w s.34 – Gun shot – Murder of victim-deceased and injuries to his brother – Conviction by trial court on evidence of eye-witness who was victim’s lawyer-brotherPW1 – High Court set aside conviction doubting the presence of PW1 at the time and place of occurrence – State’s appeal against acquittal – Held: PW-1 being a lawyer having good practice and also a member of the Nagar Palika giving audience to the public in the morning, the High Court rightly doubted his presence at the place of occurrence at 9.30 a.m. on the day of incident – High Court also doubted the evidence of PW-1 as to why an advocate like PW-1 instead of going to the court would follow his brother who was taking the cattle for grazing in the jungle – Absence of bullet holes on the clothes of the deceased also created a doubt about the case of the prosecution and the time and manner alleged – Raising doubts about the case of the prosecution, the High Court extended the benefit of doubt to the respondents-accused to reverse the conviction – The view taken by High Court did not suffer from any serious and substantial error warranting interference – No reason to take a different view.
Dismissing the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1. The records showed that PW-1 was an advocate having good practice at the Bar. PW-1 was also then a member of the Nagar Palika. In his evidence PW-1 admitted that normally he used to give hearing to the public in the morning time at the Nagar Palika. As observed by the High court that audience to the public by PW-1 could have been only before the commencement of court hours and thereafter he would go to the court. Occurrence happened on 13th June, 1995 at 9.30 a.m. It was brought on record that 13th June, 1995 was a working day. PW-1 being a lawyer having good practice and also a member of the Nagar Palika giving audience to the public in the morning, the High Court rightly doubted his presence at the place of occurrence at 9.30 a.m. on the said day. The High Court also doubted the evidence of PW-1 as to why an advocate like PW-1 instead of going to the court would follow his deceased brother who was taking the cattle for grazing in the jungle and PW-1’s conduct in following his brother being unnatural. [Para 5][26-C-F]
2. In his evidence, PW-1 stated that after the occurrence he went to the court to write down the complaint first. Here again, the High Court observed that the conduct of PW-1 was quite unnatural in the sense that when one of his brothers, the deceased was killed and another brother, PW-2 sustained injuries in his arm, instead of taking the injured brother to a hospital or going to the police station, PW-1 had gone all the way to the Court only to write down the complaint. Here again, the conduct of PW-1, as observed by the High Court appeared to be strange and unnatural. [Para 6][26-F-H]
3. The deceased sustained gunshot wound on the chest with chest cavity deep. The doctor (PW-3) in his evidence pointed out that there was not a single hole either in the vest, kurta and tehmad which were sent along with the dead body for examination. Even the Inquest Report did not mention any bullet hole in the clothes of the deceased. When the deceased sustained gunshot injury on the chest with chest cavity deep, in the normal course one would expect holes on the clothes worn by the deceased, namely, western kurta. Raising doubts about the case of the prosecution, the High Court has extended the benefit of doubt to the respondents-accused to reverse the conviction. It cannot be said that the view taken by the High Court suffered from any serious and substantial error warranting interference by this Court. [Paras 7, 8][27-B-D]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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