Supreme Court Reiterates Principles To Be Adhered By Appellate Court While Reversing Acquittal

“(a) That the judgment of acquittal suffers from patent perversity; (b) That the same is based on a misreading/omission to consider material evidence on record; (c) That no two reasonable views are possible and only the view consistent with the guilt of the accused is possible from the evidence available on record.”

Elucidating it, the Bench of Justices B.R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta stated that the appellate Court overturning a judgment of acquittal must record its findings on the aforesaid factors.

To state the facts briefly, it is the prosecution's narrative that the complainant's son (deceased) had gone to put up a bund (check dam) in their land along with other prosecution witnesses. After completing the work, all of them, including the complainant, proceeded to the village. Suddenly, the accused persons appeared and said that the revenge would be taken from the complainant party for murdering one Sangound. Thereafter, the accused persons murdered the complainant's son.

FIR was filed and case was registered against the accused persons. However, the trial Court held that the prosecution could not prove the charges levelled against the accused beyond all manner of doubt and acquitted all the six accused. Challenging this acquittal, the State filed an appeal before the Karnataka High Court. The High Court reverse the acquittal of the three accused persons and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Now, the accused/ appellants have assailed this judgment of the High Court before the Apex Court.

At the outset, the Court referred to precedents that have summarised the legal position governing the appellate jurisdiction when deciding an appeal against acquittal. Thereafter, the Court outlined the above mentioned principles.

After cementing this background, the Court opined that the High Court has not followed any of these principles and has instead decided the case as a first court.

“In light of the above legal principles, if we go through the impugned judgment, we find that none of these essential mandates governing an appeal against acquittal were adverted to by learned Division Bench of the High Court which proceeded to virtually decide the appeal as a first Court on independent appreciation of evidence and recorded its own findings to hold the accused appellants(A-1, A-2 and A-3) guilty of the charge under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentenced them to imprisonment for life.,” the Court said.

In view of this, the Court concluded that the impugned judgment is contrary to the principles established by law.

FIR Is A Post Investigation Document

Moving forward, the Court highlighted the loopholes in the present case. At first, the Court pointed out that even though the complainant, the deceased and other witnesses were all going together, none other than the deceased received a single injury in the incident.

Further, the Court said that not producing the police station's Daily Diary creates a grave doubt on the genuineness of the FIR.

“The nonproduction of the Daily Dairy maintained at the police station assumes great significance in the backdrop of these facts. Apparently thus, the FIR(Exhibit P-10) is a post investigation document and does not inspire confidence.,” the Court said.

Another important aspect highlighted by the Court was the testimony of prosecution witness 6 who also claimed to be an eye witness. In his statement, he did not mention about the presence of the complainant at the place of incident.

“Thus, the case set up by prosecution that complainant, Chanagouda(PW-1) was an eye-witness to the incident, is totally contradicted by evidence of PW-6 who categorically stated that it was he who had informed the family members, the informant Chanagouda (PW-1) being one of them, about the incident at 6.00 or 7.00 pm and that they responded saying that they would be going to the police station for filing a report.,” the Court added.

Motive Acts As A Double-Edged Sword

Regarding the motive attached in the present case, the Court observed that the murder of Sangound took place two years earlier. Thus, there has been a considerable time gap to imply that the appellants were seeking revenge.

“It has been laid down by this Court in a catena of decisions that motive acts as a double-edged sword. Hence, the very fact that members of the prosecution party were arraigned as accused in the murder of Sangound, son of A-4, this could also have been the motive for the prosecution witness to rope in the accused appellants for the murder of Malagounda.,” the Court added.

Thus, in view of these observations the Court held that the entire prosecution case comes under the shadow of doubt. The Court was also of the view that the Trial Court's ruling did not suffer from any infirmity or perversity. Adding to this, the Court also marked that the High Court was not justified in reversing the well- reasoned judgment of the trial Court. Thus, the impugned judgment was set aside, and the accused-appellants were set free of all charges. 

Also from the judgment- To Prove S.27 Evidence Act Statement, Investigating Officer Must Narrate What Accused Stated; Merely Exhibiting Memorandum Not Enough : Supreme Court

Case Title : Babu Sahebagouda Rudragoudar and others v. State of Karnataka

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 316

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