Allahabad High Court Acquits Murder Convict Who Was Given Remission In 2021 Upon Spending 25 Years In Jail

The Allahabad High Court last week acquitted a murder accused who had been given remission in the year 2021 upon completing 25 years in Jail, as it found manifest illegality in the trial court judgment pronounced in March 2002. The Court noted that the 'extra-judicial confession' relied upon by the trial court had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt, and the same was highly improbable. The Court added that the trial court committed another mistake by relying on the recovery of the 'sabbal' (Crowbar) at the instance of the appellant, and it failed to take note that the medical evidence in the case ran contrary to the ocular version of the incident as provided by the Prosecution Witnesses. In view of this, noting that the accused-appellant had been released on remission granted by the State Government in 2021, a bench of Justice Sangeeta Chandra and Justice Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan directed that a copy of the HC's judgment of acquittal be given to him so he may be aware that the stigma of being convicted in this case has been removed according to his acquittal. As per the prosecution's case, the accused-appellant, a chowkidar working at Saket Coal Traders, killed Bhagwati Prasad Tiwari, a clerk working at the same company, on February 29, 1996, by assaulting him brutally on his head. It was alleged that the Appellant, while in the custody of the police, confessed his guilt before the Investigating Officer that he murdered the deceased as he had levelled false allegation of theft against him and had not paid him his dues. Furthermore, the prosecution alleged that on his pointing out, a blood-stained 'Sabbal' was also recovered, which was used in the offence. In 2002, the trial court found the prosecution's case proved beyond a reasonable doubt, convicted the appellant under Section 302 IPC, sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for life, Rs. 3000/—as a fine, and, in default, further imprisonment for three months. The appellant-accused moved the HC in 2002, challenging his conviction; however, during the pendency of his appeal, he was released from jail on January 10, 2021, after being granted remission. In its 20-page judgment, the High Court noted that the appellant had allegedly made an extra-judicial confession before PW-1 (Bhagwan Prasad Mishra) and PW-2 (Shiv Shankar); however, during the trial, both these witnesses stated different reasons (as told to them by the appellant-accused) for murdering the deceased. The Court stressed that this discrepancy had cast a cloud of suspicion over the appellant's making such an extra-judicial confession to PW-1 and PW-2. The Court also considered the glaring inconsistencies in the testimony of PW-1 and PW-2 concerning the manner of deriving knowledge of the murder of the deceased, as it could not find justification in the fact that both these witnesses testified contrary to each other's versions. The Court also could not accept the making of the confession by the appellant before them as it noted thus: “…the appellant was not having cordial relations with the informant and hence there was no reason, as to why he would confess his guilt before such persons who are inimical towards him and in all probability they could not render any help to him” Regarding the recovery of the alleged murder weapon, the Court noted that it was evident that these witnesses had stated different places from where the recovery of 'sabbal' is shown to have allegedly been made, making the recovery of sabbal at the pointing of the appellant highly doubtful. In view of this, finding the alleged extra-judicial confession to be not trustworthy and considering the other glaring contradictions in the omissions and inherent weakness in the testimony of the two prosecution witnesses of fact, the Court acquitted him.Amicus Abhineet Jaiswal argued for the appellant. Case title - Jaimangal Yadav vs. The State Of U.P. 2025 LiveLaw (AB) 18Case citation: 2025 LiveLaw (AB) 18Click Here To Read/Download order

Allahabad High Court Acquits Murder Convict Who Was Given Remission In 2021 Upon Spending 25 Years In Jail

Sparsh Upadhyay

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