'No Perversity In Trial Court's Order, It Didn't Miss Woods For Trees': Allahabad HC Upholds MoS Ajay Mishra's Acquittal In Murder Case

While upholding the acquittal of Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra Teni in a 23-year-old Prabhat Gupta Murder Case, the Allahabad High Court said that there was no perversity in the order of acquittal passed by the Trial Court as the lower Court didn't miss the woods for the trees.

With this, finding the prosecution's theory to be unconvincing, the bench of Justice Attau Rahman Masoodi and Justice Om Prakash Shukla dismissed UP Govt's appeal against the acquittal order passed by Trial Court in 2004.

"...in the order of acquittal passed by the Trial Court and in any case, the law presumes double presumption in favour of the accused after a due adjudication by the trial Court. Further, on the recording of the findings as aforesaid, we find that the prosecution has utterly failed to establish the chain of events which can be said to exclusively lead to the one and only conclusion, i.e., the guilt of the accused persons," the Court added.

The background of the case

It may be noted that this case dates back to the year 2000 when a rising student leader named Prabhat Gupta was shot dead near his house in Tikonia (Lakhimpur Kheri). In this case, 4 people including Union Minister Teni were named as accused. In 2004, Teni was acquitted by the lower Court.

Against the order of the lower court, a revision plea under Section 397/ 401 Cr.P.C. was filed by the complainant/revisionist (Santosh Gupta/father of deceased Prabhat Gupta) before the HC. The revision was admitted in February 2005 and was connected with the Criminal Appeal filed by the state government against the acquittal order.

Before the Court, it was argued that the case against Teni and others rests on the foundational testimony of Sanjeev Gupta (PW-3) who was the real brother of the deceased. It was argued that his oral testimony being natural was wholly reliable and the corroborative evidence fully supports the case of the prosecution.

It was his (PW3) case that he started from his father’s residence along with Vinod Gupta (PW-2) and were following the deceased Prabhat Gupta alias Raju (Deceased) who had left the same house, after having a meal, at shop nearly about the same time in the afternoon.

It was his further testimony that he spotted, from a close distance from the place of occurrence, all the four accused possessed small firearms and saw two of them firing on the deceased in the daylight at 3 pm on July 8, 2000.

Court's observations

In its order, the Court noted that the whole story of the complicity of the accused persons revolved around the oral evidence of PW-1, PW-2, PW-3, PW4 and PW-10, who are the witnesses of facts to establish the complicity of the four accused.

The Court noted that the presence of PW-2 and PW-3, when analysed from the oral testimony of PW-3 in depth, does not give any clue as to how PW-2 reached the place of informant and as to when the two witnesses joined each other so as to follow the deceased on that fateful day.

The Court further noted that the PW2 and PW4 were declared hostile witnesses during the trial/. In this regard, the Court observed thus:

"From consideration and appraisal of the statements of the hostile witnesses PW-2 and PW-4, it appears that the facts deposed by the hostile witnesses were not in keeping with the statement of other witness and were not in keeping with the case set up by the prosecution could have, in all probabilities, weakened the implication of convict respondent Ajay Mishra alias Teni and in order to allay this apprehension the two key witnesses were declared to be hostile...The hostile witness PW-4 who is stated to be running a hotel near the place of occurrence had taken a somersault and went even to the extent of denying the fact that his statement under Section 161 was ever taken. He might have done so under some threat or in order to save his skin and distance himself from a case of murder involving major political parties."

Further, on a careful analysis of the evidence available on records, the Court did not find that the statement of star witness PW-3 about the meeting of PW-2 at his house can be believed to be true, therefore, the Court opined that the testimony of PW-3 to have met at home and accompanied with PW-2 by following the deceased, after having meal, remains doubtful. 

Further, the Court noted that according to the site plan, the gun-shot fires were made from the range of within one step by the accused persons and if the same is correct, then, the Court observed, certainly blacklining and charring must have been on the deceased, however, the Court noted that the post mortem report did not reveal any such blackening or charring.

"According to the statement of PW-7, fires were not made from close range because around the wounds there was no black lining and charring. According to him, a gunshot ought to have been fired from a distance. Thus, the testimony of PW-2, PW-3 and PW10 relating to the firing of gunshot falls flat as they are at variance to the scientific report," the Court said.

Further, finding certain other discrepancies and falsity in the statements of the witnesses, the Court came to the conclusion that it was probable that some unknown assailants came and killed the deceased and thereafter, fled from the crime scene after committing the murder of the deceased.

"...implication of the accused persons may be on account of Ranjish (rivalry) and also on the basis of suspicion that these accused people may have hand in the murder," the Court opined.

As a sequel to the above, the appeal as well as the revision were dismissed. The judgment and order of acquittal dated March 29, 2004, under section 302/34 IPC, acquitting all the accused/respondents was upheld and all the accused/respondents are acquitted of the charges levelled against them.

Appearances

Counsel for Appellant:  A.H.Rizvi, Avanindra Singh Parihar, Government Advocate, Nagendra Mohan, Sushil Kumar Singh

Counsel for Respondent: S.K. Shukla, Armendra Pratap Singh, Brij Mohan Sahai, Pradeep Chaurasia, Purnendu Chakravarty, Salil Kumar Srivastava, Sumit Kumar Singh

Counsel for Revisionist: Sushil Kumar Singh, Armendra Pratap Singh, Pradeep Chaurasia

Counsel for Opposite Party: Govt.Advocate, Rajiva Dubey

Case Title - State of UP vs. Ajai Mishra @ Taini And 3 Ors along with a connected criminal revision plea

Case Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (AB) 157

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