Summary
Conviction of the motorcycle driver who aided a point-blank shooting was affirmed, including the High Court’s enhancement to seven years for attempted murder with abetment. Consistent eyewitness identification, corroborated recovery of buried weapons and ballistic evidence established involvement. The alleged identification defects and investigative discrepancies did not undermine the evidence on these facts. Failure to prove a wider communal conspiracy did not defeat the proved shooting case.
Issues
- Whether identification and recovery evidence reliably established the appellant’s involvement.
- Whether investigative discrepancies and failure to prove the wider conspiracy undermined conviction.
- Whether the enhanced sentence should be maintained.
Held
- Witness evidence and the trial judgment had to be read as a whole. Both eyewitnesses positively identified the appellant, and the Magistrate corroborated the identification procedure. No infirmity sufficient to vitiate that identification or evidence of police prompting was established. (¶¶ 30, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41)
- The chain-of-custody objections and inability to recall minute details did not warrant interference on the available incriminating evidence. The recovery was independently corroborated by the panch witness; weapons dug out from beneath sand were not treated as a recovery from a place accessible to all merely because the surrounding ground was open. (¶¶ 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
- Proof of motive was unnecessary on these facts where eyewitnesses established the firing. Failure to prove the wider conspiracy explained the third accused’s acquittal but did not displace the evidence linking the appellant to the shooting. Minor discrepancies were insufficient to vitiate conviction. (¶¶ 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59)
- The point-blank shooting, serious injury, eyewitness evidence and ballistic link supported the attempted-murder conviction with abetment. The High Court properly enhanced the imprisonment for that offence from six to seven years in view of its gravity. (¶¶ 53, 58, 59, 60)
Result
Appeals dismissed; appellant’s conviction and sentence, including seven years’ rigorous imprisonment under sections 307/114 IPC as enhanced by the High Court, affirmed.