"Prosecution Failed To Produce Evidence To Complete Chain Of Circumstances": Allahabad High Court Acquits 2 Accused Of Murder Charges

The Allahabad High Court recently acquitted two accused of murder charges. The Court held that the instant case was based on circumstantial evidence and the prosecution had completely failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the complete chain of events and circumstances which unerringly points toward the involvement and guilt of the two appellants.

The Bench of Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Shamim Ahmed also stressed that suspicion, however, strong cannot be allowed to take the place of proof and, therefore, the Court has to be watchful and ensure that conjectures and suspicions do not take place of legal proof.

The case in brief

Essentially, the Court was dealing with the case of the murder of one Surendra Singh. A written report was lodged by Roshal Lal (P.W.1/informant), who is the brother of the deceased, on October 13, 1994, alleging that the accused appellants had killed his brother.

It was stated in the complaint that the Suresh (appellant no. 1) had grudged against the deceased as he had given testimony against Suresh's elder brother, Sumer, due to which was he was convicted in a murder case.

It was alleged that Suresh (appellant no. 1) developed a friendship with the deceased and on October 12, 1994, he and Mukesh (appellant no. 2) took the deceased along with them. It was further alleged that PW2 (Raju) had seen them taking the deceased with them.

At around 6 pm that day, Tilak Raj (PW6) witnessed the accused/appellants with the deceased at the hotel. The following day, i.e on October 13, 1994, at about 4.00 AM, Yadram (P.W.5) saw that the accused were keeping a corpse in a sack whose legs were protruding outside. When he asked them what was in the sack, Suresh replied that he took the revenge of enmity.

On that very day, when P.W.1 and his family members were searching for the deceased then Premchandra (not examined), Yadram (P.W.5) and Raju (P.W.2) (both declared hostile) disclosed the above facts.

Thereafter, the dead body of his brother was also found lying near a Dharam Kanta. Therefore, a written complaint was lodged by him against the accused/appellants.

Trial Court's findings

The appellants had been convicted merely on the basis of testimonies of the informant P.W.1-Roshan Lal and P.W.5-Yadram as well as recoveries made on the pointing out of accused/appellant Mahesh from the house of accused-appellant Suresh.

Court's observations

At the outset, the Court underscored that the testimonies of the PWs relied upon by the trial court had material contradictions in their statements, which, the Court opined, cannot be thrown away lightly.

The Court noted that though the F.I.R. of the incident was lodged as per the story told by P.W.2-Raju, P.W.6-Tilak Raj and Prem Chandra, however, no one had actually seen the deceased going along with the accused-appellants before the murder of the deceased or the body was found.

The Court further took into account the fact that P.W.2-Raju and P.W.6-Tilak Raj were declared hostile and these witnesses had completely denied in their testimonies that they had seen the deceased along with the accused appellants before the murder of the deceased, hence, the court added, the very basis of lodging the F.I.R. against the accused/ appellants appears to be doubtful and creates suspicion on the prosecution story.

So far as the evidence of P.W.5-Yadram is concerned, the Court noted that he, in his cross-examination, though had deposed that he had identified the dead body of the deceased when the accused appellants were taking it in a sack, he had not stated so to the Inspector.

Against this backdrop, the Court noted that this testimony of P.W.5 casts a serious doubt itself as normally, on seeing the dead body particularly when it had been identified, naturally, the person definitely would go tell the same to either the family members or to anyone known, but this aspect of the matter had not been considered by the trial court.

In the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case, the Court opined that there are various lacunae in the case of the prosecution in establishing the chain of circumstantial evidence against the accused-appellants.

Further, the Court observed, that there was no cogent or clinching evidence on record which proves the guilt of the accused appellants beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, The impugned judgment of conviction was found unsustainable and was set aside and the appellants were acquitted by giving them the benefit of doubt.

Case title - Suresh alias Chaveney v. State Of U.P and connected appeal

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AB) 273

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