Proving Case Beyond Reasonable Doubt Does Not Mean To Nitpick To Find Excuse To Obtain Acquittal: Supreme Court

"The test which is applied of proving the case beyond reasonable doubt does not mean that the endeavour should be to nick pick and somehow find some excuse to obtain acquittal.", the Supreme Court remarked in a judgment dismissing appeals filed by murder accused.

Pappu Tiwari, Sanjay Ram, Uday Pal, Ajay Pal, Pintu Tiwari and Law Tiwari were convicted by the Trial Court under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The High Court of Jharkhand vide a common judgment  affirmed the judgment of conviction of the trial court against all the six convicts. In pursuance of an inquiry conducted by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate on the aspect of juvenility, the High Court opined that since Pintu Tiwari was a minor on the date of the incident and had already remained in jail for more than three years, no further order of detention could be passed in view of the provisions of Sections 15 & 16 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. Sanjay Ram and Uday Pal accepted the High Court judgment. The other three convicts filed appeals.

Law Tiwari, in appeal, raised the plea of alibi.  The burden was on Law Tiwari to establish the plea of alibi  which he failed to discharge, the court observed. Pappu Tiwari contended that if reasonable doubt could be created in the story of the prosecution, the appellant must succeed. According to him, there was contradiction in the testimonies of the eye witnesses. On perusal of the evidence it cannot be said that there are any major discrepancies in the testimony of the eye witnesses as to throw doubt on the story of the prosecution, the bench observed.

Yet another contention was that the the FIR was ante-timed. "On the intimation of the incident, the fardbeyan was recorded expeditiously, inquest report prepared and the FIR was registered within 25 minutes of the same. The body was sent for post-mortem immediately and the FIR was sent to the court the next morning. We cannot say that there is any loophole which could have been utilised or that the FIR was ante timed and, thus, the objective of the requirement for sending the FIR to the Magistrate has been complied with. Thus, there is no merit in this plea", the court held.

The accused contended that there was a major discrepancy between the inquest report and the post-mortem report. "There is little doubt that there is not a minor but a major difference in recording the number of injuries suffered by the deceased in the inquest report and the post-mortem report. However, this will not be fatal in our view. We say so keeping in mind the purpose of an inquest report, which is not a substantive evidence. The objective is to find out whether a person who has died under suspicious circumstances, what may be the apparent cause of his death. In the present case the death was unnatural. There were wounds. There is no doubt that it is a homicide case. The expert is the doctor who carries out the post-mortem and has been medico legal expert. The two fire arm injuries have been clearly identified with the wounds at the entry and at the exit being identified. We have already discussed the proximity of the time period between the intimation and the police proceeding with it right up to the stage when the post-mortem commenced. We do not find any substance in this plea.", the court observed.

While dismissing his appeal, the bench observed thus:

"The remaining arguments of learned counsel for the appellant are based on plea of defective investigation, absence of independent witnesses but then there is no reason why the eye witnesses story, which is believable should not be given full credence. The test which is applied of proving the case beyond reasonable doubt does not mean that the endeavour should be to nick pick and somehow find some excuse to obtain acquittal."

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