Summary
The Court set aside convictions for murder and causing disappearance of evidence. The recovered weapons lacked a proved forensic link, identification of a commonplace lungi was unreliable, and the alleged eyewitness’s serious visual and hearing limitations, surrounding circumstances and conduct undermined his account. The asserted past enmity did not cure these deficiencies. Where the evidence permits two views, the one favourable to the accused must prevail.
Issues
- Whether the eyewitness account, recoveries, identification evidence and alleged motive reliably established the appellant’s guilt.
Provisions considered
- Section 162, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973Applied the restriction on investigative police statements to identification communications made in police presence. (¶ 10)
Held
- The weapons were not reliably linked to the offence. The purported chemical-analysis report referred to by the trial court was absent from the record, and vital forensic evidence concerning a seized shirt was withheld, warranting an adverse inference against the prosecution. (¶¶ 8.1, 8.2)
- Test identification supplies corroboration rather than substantive proof. Here police presence, showing the witness only one lungi despite the record mentioning three, inconsistent recovery accounts and the absence of distinguishing features on an article commonly worn in the village made the identification unsafe. (¶¶ 9, 10, 11, 12)
- The alleged eyewitness’s inability to see beyond one or two feet, darkness and rain, and doubtful claim of hearing the victim from a greater distance than another witness who heard nothing rendered his evidence unreliable. His failure to inform police or the known victim’s family further undermined his account in these circumstances. (¶¶ 13, 14)
- The concluded land dispute and earlier murder allegation did not, without further material establishing a proximate motive, support conviction on this deficient evidence. If two views of the evidence are possible, the view favourable to the accused must be adopted. (¶¶ 15, 16, 17)
Result
Appeal allowed. Trial Court judgment and High Court judgment sustaining the appellant’s convictions were set aside.