‘Contradiction In Statements Of Eyewitnesses Makes Prosecution Story Doubtful’: Rajasthan High Court Acquits Two In 40 Year Old Murder Case

The Rajasthan High Court recently set aside the conviction of two accused persons under Section 302 of IPC on the ground that the statements of all the three alleged eye witnesses (minor children of the deceased) were contradictory to each other and did not corroborate to the circumstances narrated by the prosecution. The case dated back to August 1983

The division bench of the Acting Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Rekha Borana said:

“…...there are stark contradictions in the statements of all the three alleged eye witnesses, which makes the complete prosecution story doubtful. First version of the alleged eye witnesses was that Prithvi Singh and Bhanwar Singh killed their father; second version was that their mother, sister and Dalla jointly killed him; the total new version in the statements is that the fact of the father having been killed jointly by the three children was informed to their maternal uncle and after the said information, they all decided to dispose of the body in the talab nearby but the same could not be done as the body has deteriorated by then.”

The deceased was the father of the alleged three eye witnesses (PW 2, PW 3, and PW 4) and husband of accused no. 1.

The appellants were convicted under Section 302 (Punishment for Murder), Section 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and Section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Trial Court vide judgement dated February 23, 1991 for allegedly the offence of murder of the deceased.

The appellants filed the present appeal assailing the impugned judgment of the Trial Court. Their counsel submitted that there are stark contradictions in the statements of all the three eye witnesses which prove that none of them had witnessed any such incident and the story as framed by the prosecution was totally concocted one.

It was further submitted that no motive for the alleged murder was proved on record against the appellants by the prosecution.

The Court noted that PW 4 who was 10 years of age while deposing before the Trial Court, admitted that he was sleeping at the time of incident.

“A bare perusal of the above statements makes it clear that PW 4 was not the eye witness to the incident and the said fact has been admitted by he himself as well as by PW 3. So far as PW 2 is concerned, it is clear that he has exaggerated his statement which is totally contrary to the other alleged eye witnesses,” said the court. 

Relying upon the judgments of the Supreme Court in Bhagwan Singh v. State of M.P. 2003 SCC (Cri) 712 and Digamber Vaishnav & Anr. v. State of Chhattisgarh 2019 Cr.L.R. (SC) 256, the court opined that the statements as made by all the three children alleged to be the eye witnesses to the incident cannot be relied upon because of the following reasons:

1. The statements as made by the children were not the one made immediately after the occurrence of the incident.
2. Admittedly all the three children had been in police custody for 10 days and it is only after coming out of the said custody that they, for the first time, accused the present appellants of the murder of their father. It is clear that the same was a result of some tutoring and the said fact becomes more relevant when they had at the first instance, accused two other persons of the murder.
3. No independent witness besides these three children have been examined by the prosecution and none of the other prosecution witness has corroborated the story of three child witnesses.
4. The statements of all the three alleged eye witnesses are contradictory to each other and also do not corroborate to the circumstances as narrated by the prosecution.

The court noted that for the above mentioned reasons, the statements of all the alleged three eye witnesses could not have been relied upon by the learned trial court so as to convict the accused appellants.

“….we have no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has failed to prove the charges against the appellants by leading reliable evidence. The impugned judgment does not stand to scrutiny,” the court said.

Thus, the court quashed and set aside the impugned judgment dated February 23, 1991 passed by the trial court and acquitted the appellants.

Case Title: Smt. Bhanwari & Anr. v. The State of Rajasthan

Coram: The Acting Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Rekha Borana

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