Summary
Two accused were convicted under Sections 302 and 302 read with 34 IPC for the murder of a man at a TASMAC liquor shop on the testimony of his son and wife, who claimed to have followed him there by bicycle. The Court found their presence at the scene inherently improbable, since they would have had to cover about 16 kilometres on one bicycle in roughly thirty minutes, noted their failure to report at a police station on the way home, that the independent witnesses had turned hostile and spoke of four or five assailants, and that the 26 injuries pointed to a group attack; the prosecution had not proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt and both accused were acquitted.
Issues
- Whether the testimony of PW-1 and PW-2, the son and wife of the deceased, established their presence at the place of occurrence and could by itself sustain the conviction.
- Whether the prosecution proved the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt when the other eyewitnesses had turned hostile and gave a different account of the attack.
Provisions considered
- Section 302, Indian Penal Code, 1860Accused No. 1 was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment on the eyewitness account of PW-1 and PW-2. The conviction was set aside because the prosecution failed to prove his involvement beyond reasonable doubt. (¶¶ 2, 6, 8, 33, 34)
- Section 34, Indian Penal Code, 1860Accused No. 2 was convicted under Section 302 read with Section 34 for allegedly luring the deceased to the shop and signalling Accused No. 1 to attack. With the eyewitness account disbelieved, no evidence of common intention survived and the conviction was set aside. (¶¶ 2, 6, 8, 33, 34)
Held
- When witnesses are related or interested, their testimony must be scrutinised with greater care and circumspection; the son and wife of the deceased were interested witnesses whose evidence had to meet a stricter standard and be examined to rule out embellishment. (¶¶ 22, 23)
- It was exceedingly improbable that a boy of 17 could cycle about 16 kilometres, with his middle-aged mother as pillion, within the bare thirty minutes between the deceased leaving home at noon and the incident at 12.30 p.m.; the High Court's presumption that a shorter route might have been taken was unwarranted when PW-1 himself deposed to the distance. Once the presence of PW-1 and PW-2 became doubtful, the whole prosecution story became unbelievable. (¶¶ 24, 27, 28, 30)
- The conduct of the two witnesses in cycling the full distance home before going to the police, although a police station lay on the way, was a glaring loophole for which no satisfactory explanation was offered. (¶ 29)
- The independent eyewitnesses (two customers and the manager of the shop) turned hostile and stated that four or five persons attacked the deceased; 26 injuries recorded in the post-mortem report were unlikely to have been caused by a single assailant; and the deceased, a habitual drunkard once detained under the Goondas Act, probably had enmities with several people. These possibilities could not be ruled out, so the case was not one where in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused alone. (¶¶ 31, 32)
- The prosecution failed to discharge its burden of establishing guilt beyond reasonable doubt and the accused had to be declared innocent. (¶ 33)
Result
Appeals allowed; the High Court's judgment dated 10.09.2024 and the trial court's judgment dated 04.03.2020 quashed and set aside; both appellants acquitted of all charges and ordered to be released forthwith unless required in any other case; pending applications disposed of.