Calcutta High Court Acquits Convicts In Almost 40-Year-Old Culpable Homicide Case, Cites Witnesses' "Unnatural Conduct"

The Calcutta High Court has set aside the conviction of several persons in a nearly four-decade-old culpable homicide case, holding that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt as the evidence of related eyewitnesses was riddled with contradictions, their conduct appeared wholly unnatural, the very genesis of the FIR was doubtful, and the investigation suffered from serious lapses.Justice Prasenjit Biswas overturned the 1988 judgment of the Sessions Court, which had convicted the appellants under Sections 147 and 304 Part I read with Section 149 IPC and sentenced them to five years' rigorous imprisonment. The Court observed that when the “foundation itself appears shaky,” the conviction cannot be sustained in law.The prosecution case originated from a complaint lodged by the victim's wife alleging that her husband had been called to a midnight meeting at a village club where he was mercilessly assaulted by the accused and later succumbed to his injuries. However, the High Court found that the star witnesses — the wife, brother and sister-in-law of the deceased — were closely related and interested witnesses whose testimonies required careful scrutiny.The Bench noted that although these witnesses claimed to have seen the victim bleeding profusely from the nose, ear and mouth, they neither arranged immediate medical assistance nor shifted him to hospital until the next morning. Terming such behaviour wholly inconsistent with normal human conduct, particularly from close relatives, the Court held that their indifferent and passive conduct cast serious doubt on their very presence at the scene and substantially eroded the credibility of their evidence. This doubt was compounded by the fact that the victim's clothes reportedly bore no bloodstains despite allegations of heavy bleeding.The Court further found that the de facto complainant made material improvements in her deposition by introducing several facts that were absent in the earliest written complaint. These omissions and subsequent embellishments, the Bench said, amounted to material contradictions which materially impaired the evidentiary value of her testimony.Serious doubts were also raised regarding the very lodging of the FIR. The informant gave shifting versions, at different stages stating that the Officer-in-Charge recorded her statement, that a politically affiliated person drafted the complaint, and that another complaint was prepared later. The Court described these versions as mutually destructive and held that the authenticity, spontaneity and purity of the earliest version stood compromised, raising the possibility of outside influence.On the question of participation of the accused, the Court observed that no specific overt act had been attributed to each appellant. One witness stated he saw only one accused assaulting the victim while others were merely present. Reiterating that criminal liability is personal, the Bench held that vague and omnibus allegations against a group, without delineating individual roles, are inherently weak and unsafe to form the basis of conviction.The Court also drew an adverse inference from the prosecution's failure to examine independent local witnesses despite the alleged presence of several villagers at the spot. In addition, it flagged multiple investigative lapses, including non-seizure of bloodstained earth from the place of occurrence, failure to examine key witnesses during investigation, and improper reliance on unproved Section 161 CrPC statements as substantive evidence.Taking a cumulative view of the contradictions, omissions, improvements, lack of corroboration and defective investigation, the Court held that the prosecution had failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Case Title: Bishnupada Choudhury & Ors. v. State of West BengalCase No: CRR 144 of 1988Click here to read order

Calcutta High Court Acquits Convicts In Almost 40-Year-Old Culpable Homicide Case, Cites Witnesses' "Unnatural Conduct"

Srinjoy Das

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