Jet Santhosh Murder Case: Kerala High Court Acquits 7 Including Two Death Row Convicts, Says Approver's Evidence Not Reliable

Santhosh was a member in the gang of the accused until he joined a rival goonda gang in Trivandrum. As per reports, his murder initiated a chain of murders in Trivandrum city.

As per the prosecution case, the accused conspired to kill Santhosh Kumar as he was allegedly having an illicit relationship with the wife of 5^th accused. They kidnapped him from a barber shop in a Tata Sumo, tortured him and killed him in a cemetery by hacking off his right hand and right leg, it was alleged.

All the prosecution witnesses had turned hostile. The Court noted that the entire case was based on the evidence of the approver, Nazarudeen, who drove the Sumo on the day of incident.

From the beginning itself, the investigating officer was apprehending that the witness would turn hostile. He therefore, approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate to turn Nazarudeen into an approver. Nazarudeen submitted that he was not involved in the torture of the deceased as he was driving the vehicle. He admitted to washing off the blood stains from the Sumo before it was seized, Court recorded in its order.

The Court said that many circumstances that led to granting of pardon to Nazarudeen bothered it.

1. He was granted pardon based on the unjustified apprehension of the investigating officer that all prosecution witnesses will turn hostile. This, the court said was not enough to sacrifice the public interest that would be served by prosecuting him.
2. The statement of the approver is exculpatory in nature. He has excluded himself from fault by saying he did not torture the deceased. He said that he was privy to the incident as he was driving the vehicle.
3. The statements of the approver before he became approver were not placed before the court along with the final report and was not furnished to the other accused.

The Court said that an approver's evidence should be accepted only after exercising great deal of caution and scrutiny. He has the motive to shift guilt from himself, he hopes for a pardon and him being an immoral person is likely to commit perjury.

The Court held that to accept the approver's evidence, it must be reliable and corroborated.

“Thus, an approver's evidence has to satisfy the double test ie. (i) his evidence must be reliable and (ii) his evidence should be sufficiently corroborated. If the first test is not satisfied, there is no necessity to look for a satisfaction of the second test.”

The Court also found that there were material inconsistencies in the statement given by the approver. While deposing, he said he saw Anilkumar, the 1^st accused severing off the limb and hand of the deceased. However, during cross-examination he said that he came to know about the limbs only from the newspaper. In the same way, he had said that he did not talk about the incident to anyone but in seizure mehzar, it was recorded that he disclosed the details to Prasanth.

The Court added that even if the statement of the approver is accepted, there is nothing to corroborate that evidence to show that the crime was committed by the accused

The Court added that the forensic evidence was not enough to support the case of prosecution.

Thus, the court acquitted all the accused.

Case No: DSR No. 2 of 2017

Case Title: State of Kerala v Anil Kumar @ Jacky and Others

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Ker) 515