Orissa High Court Upholds Acquittal Of Three Persons Accused In 2001 Keonjhar Witch-Craft Murder Case

The Orissa High Court has upheld the order of acquittal in favour of three persons accused of committing murder of a lady in 2001 suspecting her to be a ‘witch’.

While extending ‘benefit of doubt’ to the accused, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Dr. Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Gourishankar Satapathy said,

“By that yardstick, the evidence brought on record by the prosecution failed to meet the requisite standard. The statements purportedly made by the accused leading to the recovery of the body of the deceased were made at a time when they were not in police custody and, therefore, could not be relied upon under Section 27 of the Evidence Act. This further weakened the case of the prosecution.”

Prosecution Case

The prosecution alleged that around 09:00-10:00 PM in the night of the occurrence, i.e., October 23, 2001 the accused forcefully entered the house of the deceased by breaking open the front door and dragged out the deceased saying that she is a witch. Thereafter, she did not return to the house.

After five days of the occurrence, PW-1 (the nephew of the deceased) lodged an FIR alleging that the deceased had gone missing. Subsequently, in presence of the police, the three accused persons confessed of killing the deceased and throwing her dead body in river Baitarani.

It was further alleged that at the instance of the accused persons, the dead body was traced. Thereafter, they were arrested and the police recorded their statement, made some seizures at their instance and after completing the investigation, filed the chargesheet.

The Sessions Court of Keonjhar, however, held that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts by establishing all the links of the chain and therefore, acquitted the accused persons. Thus, the government carried the case on appeal before the High Court.

Court’s Observations

The Court was of the view that PWs-1 and 2 (wife of the accused) failed to support the case of the prosecution on material aspects. While PW-1 claimed that the dibiri (night lamp) was burning in the house at the time of occurrence. He made no such claim in the statement previously made to the police.

Also, the PW-1 admitted that before going to sleep he would normally extinguish the light. Further, PW-2 said that out of fear, neither she nor her husband came out of the house when certain persons dragged the deceased outside.

“As rightly noticed by the trial Court although the accused and the two witnesses were perhaps known to each other, belonging to the same village, there was no means by which on a dark night in the absence of any light, they could have identified precisely the three accused as the persons who dragged away the deceased. There was no evidence regarding the recognition of the three accused by the two witnesses either by the voice, the manner of talking, the general appearance, gait, etc,” the Court observed.

Consequently, it held that the prosecution evidence on the point of identification of the accused by PWs-1 and 2 was indeed very weak and it was unsafe to rely upon their evidence to prove the circumstance of ‘last seen’.

The Court also noted the discrepancies, as pointed out by the Sessions Court, in the medical evidence that purported to fix the precise time of death. The postmortem was held on October 30, 2001 and the Medical Officer could only offer a wide approximation as to the date of death being anytime between 21^st and 26^th October, 2001.

“In a case of circumstantial evidence, each of the links of the chain has to be proved sufficiently well in order to bring home the guilt of the accused. The links must form a continuous chain and must point unerringly to the guilt of the accused and to no one else,” the Court added.

After perusing the aforesaid pieces of evidence, the Bench was of the view that the prosecution indeed failed in bringing home the charges against the accused persons beyond all reasonable doubts and hence, deemed it proper to uphold the order of acquittal as was handed down by the Court of Sessions.

Case Title: State of Orissa v. Mangulu Munda & Ors.

Case No.: GCRLA No. 36 of 2007

Date of Judgment: June 22, 2023

Counsel for the Appellant/State: Mr. G.N. Rout, Addl. Standing Counsel

Counsel for the Respondents: None

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Ori) 70

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