RAHIL & ANR. versus STATE (GOVT. OF N.C.T. OF DELHI)

Summary

The High Court had reversed the trial court's acquittal of the husband and son of the main accused in a murder prosecution resting on circumstantial evidence, presuming their presence in the house because they lived there and relying on uncertified call detail records to place the son near the scene. The Court held that an acquittal cannot be reversed on a speculative inference that all inmates of a house are always present in it, that CDR printouts without a Section 65-B(4) certificate are inadmissible where the defence objected at trial and the prosecution did not cure the defect, and that single-tower location data cannot in any case prove presence at a particular place beyond doubt. The convictions were set aside.

Issues

1. Whether the High Court was justified in reversing the trial court's acquittal of the appellants on the circumstantial evidence on record.
2. Whether the presence of the appellants at the place of occurrence could be presumed from the fact that they were inmates of the house of the co-accused.
3. Whether call detail records produced as computer printouts without a certificate under Section 65-B(4) of the Evidence Act were admissible, when the trial and appellate decisions predated Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer.
4. Whether cell tower location data in CDRs could establish the presence of an accused at a specific location.
5. Whether an adverse inference under Section 106 of the Evidence Act could be drawn against the appellants.

Provisions considered

• Section 302 read with Section 34; Section 120B, Indian Penal Code, 1860The appellants were acquitted by the trial court of murder read with common intention and conspiracy; the High Court convicted them under Section 302/34. The Court found no reliable evidence of their presence at the scene or of any conspiracy and restored the acquittal. (¶¶ 1, 5, 6, 8, 41, 45)
• Section 65-B(4), Indian Evidence Act, 1872A certificate from the person in charge of the relevant computer system is a condition precedent to admitting computer printouts of electronic records as secondary evidence (Anvar P.V., affirmed in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar) and cannot be supplied by oral evidence. The nodal officer admitted that the CDRs and site details were neither signed nor certified; since the defence objected at trial and the prosecution did not cure the defect, the exhibits were inadmissible. (¶¶ 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
• Section 3 (definition of 'proved'), Indian Evidence Act, 1872An incriminating fact is proved only when the court believes it to exist or considers its existence so probable that a prudent person would act on it; the presence of the appellants was not proved to that standard. (¶¶ 25, 26)
• Section 106, Indian Evidence Act, 1872The burden of proof rests on the prosecution; the onus shifts to the accused to explain facts within his special knowledge only after the prosecution proves the incriminating circumstances, such as presence at the scene. Having failed to prove presence, the prosecution could not invoke Section 106, and the High Court's adverse inference was illegal. (¶¶ 42, 43, 44)
• Section 313, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973The High Court misread the appellant Noor Ahmed's answer to a question in his examination under Section 313 as an admission that the deceased came to the accused's house; the question itself showed that the deceased had returned to his own house after the settlement at the police station. (¶¶ 18, 19)

Held

• In an appeal against acquittal, the appellate court does not interfere unless the trial court's findings are wholly perverse or against the weight of the evidence; where the acquittal rests on reasonable and plausible findings the presumption of innocence is reinforced and the appellate court should be slow to interfere. (¶¶ 16, 17)
• The High Court's finding that the appellants' presence in the house was proved rested on a misreading of the Section 313 answer; the question referred to the deceased returning to his own house, and the prosecution witnesses themselves said he returned to his residence after the patch-up. (¶¶ 18, 19)
• There was no credible evidence that the deceased actually went to the co-accused's residence that evening: the only witness claiming to have accompanied him said so for the first time in court, the claim being absent from the missing-person entry and the FIR, which amounts to a contradiction or at least an afterthought; and none of the relatives went to that house to enquire after him, which made implication out of suspicion possible. (¶¶ 20, 21, 22)
• Presence of the appellants at the time of the murder could not be presumed merely because they were the son and husband of the co-accused and ordinarily lived with her; it was nobody's case that the incident occurred in the dead of night when all family members would be expected to be at home. Reliance on a speculative inference that all inmates must invariably be present in the house at all times to reverse an acquittal was erroneous. (¶¶ 23, 24, 26, 27, 28)
• The High Court could not infer that the co-accused, being a woman, must have been assisted by others when the question whether a single person could have committed the murder was never put to the post-mortem doctor and there was no medical evidence on it. (¶ 29)
• Computer printouts of CDRs and tower site details without a certificate under Section 65-B(4) are inadmissible as secondary evidence; the ratio of Anvar P.V. as affirmed in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar was not declared prospective and has been applied to cases decided earlier. Where the accused objected at trial to the admission of the printouts and the prosecution had the opportunity to produce the certificate but did not, the defect was not cured and the exhibits are inadmissible. (¶¶ 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36)
• Even if admitted, CDRs give only the operational area of the cell tower to which a phone was connected, which varies with antenna height, frequency, transmitter power, terrain and other factors, and not the phone's exact location; without evidence of the tower's range, connection to a single tower in the locality cannot by itself prove the accused's presence at his residence beyond doubt. Triangulation across several towers is a more precise method. (¶¶ 37, 38, 39, 40)
• Telephone calls between the appellant and a co-accused who has been acquitted of murder, with no appeal against that acquittal, cannot support an inference of conspiracy to murder. (¶ 41)
• The burden of proof always rests on the prosecution; only when it discharges the initial onus of proving the incriminating circumstances within the special knowledge of the accused does the onus shift. The prosecution's failure to prove the appellants' presence could not be bridged by inferring the presence of all inmates to shift the burden to them, and the High Court's adverse inference under Section 106 was illegal. (¶¶ 42, 43, 44)

Result

Appeal allowed; the High Court's judgment set aside to the extent it convicted the appellants under Section 302/34 IPC, restoring their acquittal. Pending applications disposed of.