Brusque Approach Of High Court In Reversing Acquittal Can't Be Sustained: Supreme Court Sets Aside Murder Conviction

The Supreme Court observed that while deciding an appeal against the acquittal, it would be impermissible for the Appellate Courts to reverse a well-reasoned judgment rendered by the trial court.

The Court said that a clear finding ought to be recorded by the Appellate Court while reversing the trial court's judgment.

“In Rajendra Prasad v. State of Bihar (1977), a 3-Judge Bench of this Court pointed out that it would be essential for the High Court, in an appeal against acquittal, to clearly indicate firm and weighty grounds from the record for discarding the reasons of the Trial Court in order to be able to reach a contrary conclusion of guilt of the accused. It was further observed that, in an appeal against acquittal, it would not be legally sufficient for the High Court to take a contrary view about the credibility of witnesses and it is absolutely imperative that the High Court convincingly finds it well-nigh impossible for the Trial Court to reject their testimony. This was identified as the quintessence of the jurisprudential aspect of criminal justice. Viewed in this light, the brusque approach of the High Court in dealing with the appeal, resulting in the conviction of Appellant Nos. 1 and 2, reversing the cogent and well-considered judgment of acquittal by the Trial Court giving them the benefit of doubt, cannot be sustained”, the bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and Aravind Kumar observed.

The trial court had delivered a well-reasoned judgment acquitting the accused charged with an offence of murder and other offences punishable under IPC. Due to the failure of the prosecution to establish the guilt of the accused/appellants beyond a reasonable doubt, the trial court held in favour of the accused and acquitted them of the charges.

However, the High Court reversed the acquittal to conviction on the State's appeal. According to the High Court, the evidence adduced by the prosecution outweighed the findings recorded by the Trial Court, but no reasons worth the name were recorded by the High Court to support this conclusion.

Setting aside the High Court's decision, the court stated that the High Court committed an error in reversing the trial court's decision based on the aforesaid cryptic observation without recording any reasons for the same.

“We may point out that, once the Trial Court found no evidence to convict the accused, the burden was upon the High Court, while reversing the said judgment, to record clear findings in relation to each of the charges and, more particularly, the charge of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B IPC. However, no such exercise was undertaken by the High Court.”, the court said.

In this regard, the court referred to the case of Chandrappa and others vs. State of Karnataka (2007), where the Supreme Court culled out general principles regarding the power of the appellate Court while dealing with an appeal against a judgment of acquittal.

“The principles read thus:

(1) An appellate court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded.

(2) The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law.

(3) Various expressions, such as, “substantial and compelling reasons”, “good and sufficient grounds”, “very strong circumstances”, “distorted conclusions”, “glaring mistakes”, etc. are not intended to curtail extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature of “flourishes of language” to emphasize the reluctance of an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion.

(4) An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal, there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial court.

(5) If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.”

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed, and the conviction was set aside.

Related- Supreme Court Reiterates Principles To Be Adhered By Appellate Court While Reversing Acquittal

Appearance:

For Appellant(s) Mr. Shekhar G Devasa, Sr. Adv. M/S. Devasa & Co., AOR Mr. Manish Tiwari, Adv. Ms. Thashmitha Muthanna, Adv. Mr. Prashanth Dixit, Adv. Mr. Vishwanath Chaturvedi, Adv. Mr. Shashi Bhushan Nagar, Adv.

For Respondent(s) Mr. D. L. Chidananda, AOR Mr. Ishan Roy Chowdhary, Adv.

Case Title: Ramesh and another Versus State of Karnataka, CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 1467 OF 2012

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 718

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