Supreme Court Acquits 7 In Murder Case Of 1985

The Supreme Court today (September 25) set aside the order of conviction and sentence of seven accused persons for the offence of the abduction and murder of a lady to forcefully obtain possession of the house belonging to her father which was a matter of pending litigation.A bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma held that the prosecution is full of glaring about the offence of abduction. Whereas, for the offence of murder which was entirely dependent on circumstantial evidence, it cannot be termed as proved in the eyes of the law as the circumstantial evidence failed to meet the test of proof.Brief facts As per brief facts, one Neelam was abducted by seven persons along with other unknown persons from her house which the prosecution claims belonged to her father. As per the prosecution, she, her husband and the informant (husband's brother) resided in that house.Charges were framed by the Trial Court for offences punishable under Sections 323, 302, 364, 449, 450, 380/34 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. After the Trial, accused 1-5 were convicted under Section 302/34 and 364/34 IPC. Whereas, accused 6 and 7 were acquitted of all charges. Both conviction and acquittal were challenged by the accused 1-5 and the State of Bihar respectively, before the Patna High Court. Vide an order dated March 26, 2015, the High Court upheld the Trial Court's order in respect of the accused 1-5. But set aside the acquittal of accused 6 and 7 and found them guilty of the under Sections 302/34 and 364/34. The present batch of appeals assails the order of the High Court.What did the Supreme Court observe?The Court at the outset stated that for the offence of murder to be committed, it was necessary to prove that the offence of abducted was committed. Perusing the evidence, the Court found that the prosecution did not examine the three independent witnesses who were said to be the eyewitnesses of the incident as per the testimony of the information.The second point of doubt was on the informant's testimony. He had said that the accused persons had come to him first, took him to the well and confined him there. Thereafter, he said that he could not prevent the accused persons as A-6 had threatened him with a pistol. But in the FIR, no pistol was attributed to A-6. In the FIR, he stated that A6 and others assaulted him with fists and slaps. But this was not deposed before the Trial Court. Before the Trial Court, an improved version of the testimony was stated that A-6 carried pistol. On informant's testimony, the Court noted: "The discrepancy assumes greater seriousness in light of the fact that no pistol has been recovered from any of the accused persons and if the factum of branding of pistol is un-der the cloud of doubt, the entire conduct of PW18 becomes doubtful and unnatural, as he did not try to prevent the accused persons from entering the premises or from abducting the deceased or from taking away the deceased on their shoulders in front of his eyes as he was the brother-in-law of the deceased." Another point is that three eye-witnesses, relied by prosecution, were travelling from Lakhisarai to their home in Ghogsha village but happened to be present in Simaltalla, the place of the incident. This is to say, from Lakhisarai the next came Ghoghsa, followed by Lohanda and Simaltalla. However, why they happened to be present in Simaltalla remains unexplained by the prosecuted, as noted by the Court. The Supreme Court found that the High Court had discarded the testimony of one of the three eyewitnesses as he had no reason to be present in the time of the incident. But the High Court did not extend this logic to the other two eye-witnesses. The Court stated: "Even otherwise, since the three eye witnesses were similarly placed as per their own version, the rejection of testimony of one witness ought to have raised a natural doubt on the testimonies of the other two witnesses unless they had a better explanation. However, no such doubt was entertained by the High Court and the impugned judgment offers no explanation for the same. In light of their own testimonies, none of the three eye witnesses were required to visit Sikandra Chowk or Simaltalla for going to their village."The Court also noted that none of the eyewitnesses is an independent witness of fact. It said: "Ordinarily, there is no rule of law to discard the testimonies of the witnesses merely be-cause they were known to the victim or belonged to her family. For, an offence may be committed in circumstances that only the family members are present at the place of occurrence in natural course. However, the present case does not fall in such category."The Court also raised serious questions over the fairness of the investigation conducted by the investigating officer. It said: "The stark difference between the versions put forth by the PW21 [investigation officer] and DW3/DW4 [senior officers who had exercised supervision of the...

Supreme Court Acquits 7 In Murder Case Of 1985

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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