Leading Cases For Supreme Court AOR Exams 2021 [Part 2- Criminal Law]

The list of leading cases for AOR exams provided by the Supreme Court contains the following judgments that dealt with criminal laws [ Item nos: 4,5,11,13,17, 25, 26, 28 31, 35, 39, 46, 47, 50, 60]Sharad Birdhi Chand Sarda v. State of MaharashtraCase: CrA 745 of 1983; 17 July 1984; Justices Syed Murtaza Fazalali, A. Varadarajan , Sabhyasachi MukharjiCitation: AIR 1984 SC 1622, 1985 SCR (1) 88 ; 1984 (4) SCC 116This judgment laid down the standard necessary for recording a conviction on the basis of circumstantial evidence. The court said that the following five golden principles constitute the panchsheel of the proof of a case based on circumstantial evidence.The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established. The circumstances concerned 'must or should' and not 'may be' established. There is not only a grammatical but a legal distinction between 'may be proved' and 'must be or should be proved' The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say. they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty, The circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency. They should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved,There must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. This judgment also interpreted Section 32(1) of the Evidence Act on Dying Declarations. It held as follows:Section 32 is an exception to the rule of hearsay and makes admissible the statement of a person who dies, whether the death is a homicide or a suicide, provided the statement relates to the cause of death, or exhibits circumstances leading to death. In this respect, as indicated above, the Indian Evidence Act, in view of the peculiar conditions of our society and the diverse nature and character of our people, has thought it necessary to widen the sphere of s.32 to avoid injustice. The test of proximity cannot be too literally construed and practically reduced to a cut-and-dried formula of universal application so as to be confined in a straitjacket. Distance of time would depend or vary with the circumstances of each case. For instance, where death is a logical culmination of a continuous drama long in process and is, as it were, a finale of the story, the statement regarding each step directly connected with the end of the drama would be admissible because the entire statement would have to be read as an organic whole and not torn from the context. Sometimes statements relevant to or furnishing an immediate motive may also be admissible as being a part of the transaction of death. It is manifest that all these statements come to light only after the death of the deceased who speaks from death. For instance, where the death takes place within a very short time of the marriage or the distance of time is not spread over more than 3-4 months the statement may be admissible under s.32.The second part of cl.1 of s.32 is yet another exception to the rule that in criminal law the evidence of a person who was not being subjected to or given an opportunity of being cross-examined by the accused, would be valueless because the place of cross- examination is taken by the solemnity and sanctity of oath for the simple reason that a person on the verge of death is not likely to make a false statement unless there is strong evidence to show that the statement was secured either by prompting or tutoring. It may be important to note that s.32 does not speak of homicide alone but includes suicide also, hence all the circumstances which may be relevant to prove a case of homicide would be equally relevant to prove a case of suicide.Where the main evidence consists of statements and letters written by the deceased which are directly connected with or related to her death and which reveal a tell-tale story, the said statement would clearly fall within the four corners of s.32 and, therefore, admissible. The distance of time alone in such cases would not make the statement irrelevantA.R. Antulay vs R.S. Nayak Case: CrA 468 of 1986 ; 29 April, 1988 ; Sabyasachi Mukherjee, J; S. Ranganathan, J; S. Natarajan, J; Ranganath Misra, J; M. N.Venkatachaliah, J; G. L. Oza, J; B. C. Ray, JCitation: AIR 1988 SC 1531 ; (1988) 2 SCC 602 ; [1988] 1 Suppl. SCR 1A complaint got filed against AR Antulay who was the chief Minister of Maharashtra under Sections 161 and 165 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 5 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1952 and also under Sections 384 and 420 read with Sections 109 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court, in a judgment passed in 1984 suo motu withdrew this special case and transferred them to the High Court, with the request to the Chief Justice to assign these two cases to a...

Leading Cases For Supreme Court AOR Exams 2021 [Part 2- Criminal Law]

Ashok Kini

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