ESAKKIMUTHUversusSTATE REPRESENTED BY THE INSPECTOR OF POLICE

                 [2025] 7 S.C.R. 1361 : 2025 INSC 880

                          Esakkimuthu
                               v.
           State Represented by the Inspector of Police
                     (Criminal Appeal No. 3099 of 2025)
                                  22 July 2025
               [Vikram Nath* and Sandeep Mehta, JJ.]


                            Issue for Consideration
       Whether the courts below erred in convicting the appellants and
       sentencing them to life imprisonment for the murder of the deceased
       relying upon the testimonies of PW-1 and PW-2, who were interested
       witnesses being the son and wife of the deceased respectively.

                                   Headnotes†
       Evidence – Related/Interested witnesses – Reliance upon –
       When not proper – Appellants, A1 and A2 were convicted
       u/s.302, IPC and u/s.302 r/w 34, IPC, respectively for the murder
       of the deceased relying upon the eye-witness accounts of PW-1
       and PW-2 (son and wife of the deceased) – Interference with:
       Held: When the witnesses are related/interested, their testimonies
       have to be scrutinized with greater care and circumspection – In
       the instant case, the two key witnesses are the son and wife of
       the deceased, who are very well-interested witnesses in the case
       therefore, their testimonies shall have to be treated with great
       caution and required to be met with a stricter standard of proof in
       order to rule out any embellishment – Though, the Courts below
       relied heavily on their testimonies to bring home the guilt of the
       accused persons, on facts, their presence at the place of crime in
       itself is highly contentious and was not proven definitely – No other
       alleged eye-witness supported the prosecution’s case, independent
       witnesses were declared hostile – The fact that the deceased was
       a habitual drunkard and a convicted criminal under the Goondas
       Act makes it highly probable that the deceased had enmities with
       multiple people who may have assaulted him and caused his
       death – Not proven beyond doubt that in all human probability, the



* Author
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    act must have been done by the accused only – Prosecution did
    not discharge its burden of establishing the guilt of the accused
    persons beyond reasonable doubt – Impugned judgment passed by
    the High Court, as well as the judgment of the Trial Court, quashed
    and set aside – Appellants acquitted – Penal Code, 1860 – s.302
    r/w 34, 120B. [Paras 22, 23, 30-34]
    Evidence – Related/Interested witnesses – Appreciation –
    Standard of proof, discussed. [Paras 22, 23]

                            Case Law Cited
    Mohamed Jabbar Ali & Ors. v. State of Assam, Criminal Appeal
    No. 1105 of 2010; Gangadhar Behera v. State of Orissa [2002]
    Supp. 3 SCR 183 : AIR 2002 SC 3633 – relied on.
    Hari Obula Reddy and others v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1981)
    3 SCC 675 – referred to.

                               List of Acts
    Penal Code, 1860; Tamil Nadu Goondas Act, 1982.

                            List of Keywords
    Related/Interested witnesses; Eyewitnesses; Ongoing enmity;
    Conviction on basis of eyewitness accounts; Presence at the place
    of crime not proven; Presence at the crime scene doubtful; Guilt
    of the accused persons not proved beyond reasonable doubt;
    Witnesses turned hostile; Motive; Independent witnesses declared
    hostile; Habitual drunkard; Contradictions; Stricter standard of
    proof; Distance range; Distance of 16 kilometers; House of the
    deceased; Liquor shop; Bicycle; Tasmac shop; Charges under
    Section 120B, IPC unproven.

                           Case Arising From
    CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No.
    3099 of 2025
    From the Judgment and Order dated 10.09.2024 of the High Court
    of Judicature at Madras at Madurai in CRLAMD No. 218 of 2020
    With
    Criminal Appeal No. 3100 of 2025
[2025] 7 S.C.R.                                                       1363

       Esakkimuthu v. State Represented by the Inspector of Police


                                Appearances for Parties
      Advs. for the Appellant:
      S. Nagamuthu, Sr. Adv., Vairawan A.s, Bilal Mansoor, Shreyas
      Kaushal, S. Geyolin Selvam, Alagiri K, M.P. Parthiban, Ankur
      Prakash, Mrs. Priyanka Singh, Bilal Mansoor, Shreyas Kaushal,
      S. Geyolin Selvam, Alagiri K.
      Advs. for the Respondent:
      V. krishnamurthy, Sr. Adv., Sabarish Subramanian.

                      Judgment / Order of the Supreme Court

                                      Judgment

      Vikram Nath, J.

1.    Leave granted.
2.    The instant appeals have been preferred by the accused-appellants
      against the judgment dated 10.09.2024 passed by the Madras High
      Court in Crl. A (MD) No. 218 of 2020 wherein the High Court dismissed
      the criminal appeal(s) preferred by the appellants and confirmed
      the conviction and sentence imposed by the Trial Court in a matter
      involving Sections 302 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 18601.
3.    The brief facts forming the basis of the current appeals are as
      elucidated below. The case at hand involves two accused persons –
      Pitchu Mani @ Pitchai Mani [Accused No. 1/A1] and Esakkimuthu
      [Accused No. 2/A2]. As per the prosecution story, PW-1, Moses
      Livingston, son of the deceased, Edison Suvisedha Muthu2 was a
      resident of South Omanallur village in Tirunelveli district and is the
      de-facto complainant in the matter. Both the accused persons are
      also the residents of the same village. The deceased used to know
      one Balasubramnian, father of A1, and in July, 2011, the deceased
      was informed to the jurisdictional police by the said Balasubramanian.
      This had allegedly given rise to a feud between the two parties and
      led the deceased to attack Balasubramanian, who sustained injuries
      on his left hand due to the said attack. This ongoing enmity has
      precisely been ascribed to be the motive by the prosecution behind


1    IPC
2    “Deceased”, hereinafter.
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      the murder of the deceased by the appellants, A1 being the son of
      Balasubramanian and A2 being a relative of A1.
4.    It is further stated by the family members of the deceased himself,
      who deposed as PW-1 (son of the deceased) and PW-2 Santhi
      (wife of the deceased) that the deceased was a habitual drunkard
      and had several cases registered against him. In fact, the deceased
      was detained under the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act, 19823 and was
      released from prison merely two months prior to the incident at hand.
5.    It is the case of the prosecution that on the day of the incident, i.e. on
      14.04.2013 at around 12 noon, A2 went over to the residence of the
      deceased and asked him to accompany him to a TASMAC shop for
      consuming alcohol. The deceased and A2 left for the said purpose on
      A2’s motorcycle. PW-1 and PW-2 were at home and knew about the
      deceased’s departure with A2. However, it is alleged that they grew
      suspicious of A2’s conduct and decided to reach the said TASMAC
      shop in order to bring back the deceased. It is essential to note that,
      thereafter, PW-1 and PW-2 claim to have left their residence on a
      bicycle, reach the said shop and, from the south-entrance of the shop,
      saw the deceased person sitting and drinking with A2. At that point in
      time, A2 is said to have administered a threat to the deceased, gave
      a signal towards the north entrance of the shop/bar calling out A1
      and asking him to finish off the deceased, whereupon A1 appeared
      and started attacking the deceased indiscriminately with a weapon,
      by way of retaliation to the injuries caused to Balasubramaniam by
      the deceased, in the past. The said occurrence is described to take
      place at 12.30 p.m., having allegedly been witnessed by PW-1 and
      PW-2. The two accused persons escaped from the crime spot and
      the deceased succumbed to the multiple injuries at the spot itself.
6.    The prosecution, thereby, charged A1 for the offence under Section
      302 IPC and A2 for the offence under Section 302 r/w 34 of the IPC.
      The charge under Section 120B of IPC was also framed against the
      two accused persons. Charges read out which were denied by the
      appellants and they claimed trial.
7.    During the course of trial, in order to prove its case and establish
      the guilt of the accused persons, the prosecution examined PW-1


3    “Goondas Act”, hereinafter.
[2025] 7 S.C.R.                                                      1365

      Esakkimuthu v. State Represented by the Inspector of Police


     to PW-22, marked Ex-P1 to Ex-P24, and also produced material
     objects, MO-1 to MO-8. The accused persons did not examine any
     witness or produce any document in defence.
8.   The Trial Court, vide judgment dated 04.03.2020, convicted A1 for
     offence under Section 302 of IPC and sentenced him to undergo life
     imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/-, in default of which to
     undergo two years’ simple imprisonment. Similarly, A2 was convicted
     for the offence under Section 302 r/w 34 of IPC and sentenced to
     undergo life imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/-, in default
     of which to undergo two years’ simple imprisonment. The accused
     persons were held not guilty of charges under Section 120B of the
     IPC as the same remained unproven.
9.   The basis of the conviction by the Trial Court was the eye-witness
     accounts of PW-1 and PW-2, which were considered to be natural,
     consistent, credible and unblemished, even though the other
     witnesses had turned hostile. The criminal complaint was considered
     to be proved owing to the “I know” signature of PW-3 Backiyaraj.
     It was also held that the motive for the crime has been sufficiently
     established by the prosecution. Further, it was held that even though
     there are some contradictions between the evidence of village
     administrative officers and the investigative officers about obtaining
     the confession statements from the accused, the said contradictions
     were considered to have no effect on the prosecution case. The
     motorcycle of A2, on which A2 and the deceased had travelled to
     the liquor shop, and an “aruval”, the alleged weapon of offence,
     were recovered at the instance of accused persons, based on their
     respective confessional statement.
10. Both the accused persons preferred an appeal before the High Court
    challenging their conviction as well as sentence.
11. The High Court, vide the impugned order, dismissed the appeals,
    upheld the judgment of the Trial Court and affirmed the appellants’
    conviction and sentence.
12. The High Court, while ruling out any due importance to minor
    discrepancies in the depositions of PW-1 and PW-2, held that there
    are no material lapses in the evidence of PW-1 and PW-2. Therefore,
    it was concluded that involvement of A1 and A2 in the murder of the
    deceased person has been established beyond reasonable doubt.
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13. Aggrieved by the impugned order, the appellants are before us.
14. We have heard Mr. S. Nagamuthu, learned senior counsel appearing
    for the appellants and Mr. V. Krishnamurthy, learned senior counsel
    appearing for the respondent-state. We have also thoroughly perused
    the material on record.
15. The counsel for the appellants has primarily submitted that it is highly
    improbable that the distance of 16 kilometers between the house of
    the deceased and the liquor shop was covered by PW-1 and PW-2
    on a bicycle within 30 minutes. Further, it has been contended that
    the conduct of PW-1 and PW-2 also does not inspire confidence
    since there was no occasion for them to have followed the deceased,
    provided that they had themselves stated A2 to be a good friend of
    the deceased.
16. Additionally, there were further unnatural behaviors pointed out on the
    part of the key witnesses, especially the fact that they both travelled
    back the entire distance to their home after the incident and chose
    not to give any information about the crime to a police station which
    fell on their way back. Therefore, it was submitted that the presence
    of PW-1 and PW-2 is highly doubtful, and their eye-witness accounts
    should be discarded in light of such improbability.
17. It has also been submitted that the evidence of the interested
    witnesses should be subjected to careful scrutiny and accepted
    with caution, and hence, PW-1 and PW-2’s statements should not
    be relied on unless duly corroborated by other witnesses. Reliance
    has been placed on the case of Hari Obula Reddy and others v.
    State of Andhra Pradesh4 for the above argument.
18. On the other hand, it has been submitted by the counsel for the
    respondent that the prosecution has successfully established a clear
    motive for A1 to commit the murder in light of the ongoing enmity
    between the two parties and their families. Further, it has been argued
    that the direct and consistent testimony of the eye-witnesses, PW-1
    and PW-2, who are the son and wife of the deceased respectively,
    have been held to be credible by the Trial Court as well as the High
    Court, and should not be discarded solely on the ground of their
    relationship or the factum of them being interested witnesses.


4   (1981) 3 SCC 675
[2025] 7 S.C.R.                                                                    1367

      Esakkimuthu v. State Represented by the Inspector of Police


19. It has also been contended that the medical evidence, particularly
    the post-mortem report, strongly corroborates the ocular testimony
    regarding the fact that the deceased was actually taken to the
    TASMAC shop in order to consume liquor, as stated by PW-1 and
    PW-2, and the nature of injuries as described by these witnesses
    in their testimonies.
20. Therefore, it was submitted that the cumulative evidence, consisting
    of motive, consistent eyewitness accounts corroborated by medical
    findings, recovery of the weapon and the established sequence of
    events, paint a clear picture of the complicity of both A1 and A2 in
    the commission of the offence. A2’s role in luring the deceased to
    the location and signaling A1 is established, while A1’s role as the
    principal assailant is evident from the testimony and the nature of
    injuries.
21. Having noted that the verdict of conviction by the Trial Court as well
    as the High Court is heavily based on their reliance on the statements
    of PW-1 and PW-2, and the fact that most of the other independent
    witnesses have been declared hostile by the prosecution, we have
    given keen consideration to the depositions of the key prosecution
    witnesses, i.e. PW-1 and PW-2.
22. It is of first and foremost importance to note that it is a well-
    settled principle that when the witnesses are related/interested,
    their testimonies have to be scrutinized with greater care and
    circumspection.5 In the case of Gangadhar Behera v. State of
    Orissa,6 this Court held that the testimony of such related witnesses
    should be analysed with caution for its credibility.
23. In the instant case, the two key witnesses are the son and wife of
    the deceased, who are very well-interested witnesses in the case.
    Therefore, their testimonies shall have to be treated with great caution,
    required to be met with a stricter standard of proof and deserve to
    be scrutinized in order to rule out any embellishment.
24. Thereafter, we must note that there is admittedly a distance of about
    16 kilometers between their house in Omanallur village and the liquor
    shop in Ponnakudi. The same has been stated by PW-1 himself.


5   Mohamed Jabbar Ali & Ors. v. State of Assam, Criminal Appeal No. 1105 of 2010
6   AIR 2002 SC 3633
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25. The Trial Court has brushed aside the particular argument of the
    appellant(s), about the unlikelihood of two main witnesses having
    covered this distance in half an hour by bicycle, pointing out that on
    the date of the incident, PW-l was a young boy of 17 years and that
    both PW-1 and PW-2 were anxious about the safety of the deceased,
    who was their father/husband. It was held that, therefore, there was
    every possibility of them reaching the TASMAC shop within the said
    time period.
26. In the like manner, the High Court agreed with the view taken by the
    Trial Court and observed that PW-l, a young boy aged 17 years, and
    in an agitated state of mind to protect his father, could have cycled
    at quite a speed to reach Ponnankudi TASMAC shop in the given
    time. Further, the High Court went ahead to presume that since
    the actual route and pathway and course of pathway had not been
    given, it is probable that PW-1 could have taken an alternate route
    which may have been less than 16 kilometers.
27. Firstly, it seems absurd to presume that the distance was less than
    almost 16 kilometers when PW-1 has himself deposed and agreed
    about the said distance range. Further, in our considered opinion,
    the appellants have rightly raised the contention regarding the
    improbability of PW-1 and PW-2 covering a distance of 16 kilometers
    in a matter of barely thirty minutes on a single bicycle. Even after
    affording due consideration to factors like an anxious state of mind, it
    seems highly unlikely that a boy of 17 years of age would be able to
    cover such a long distance, that too with his middle-aged mother as
    a pillion rider. It is the prosecution’s own account that the deceased
    had left the house with A2 at around 12 noon on a motorcycle, and
    that the incident took place at around 12.30 p.m. This leaves PW-1
    and PW-2 with a bare period of thirty minutes to reach the place of
    occurrence, encounter the deceased over there and subsequently
    witness the horrific incident. It seems exceedingly improbable and
    raises huge doubts about the presence of PW-1 and PW-2 at the
    crime spot. Once their presence at the scene becomes immensely
    doubtful, it renders the entire prosecution story highly unbelievable
    and lacks any substantial evidence about the appellants’ involvement
    in the crime.
28. As per their own testimony, PW-1 and PW-2 while being at the spot and
    actively witnessing the entire crime, do not make any attempt to save
[2025] 7 S.C.R.                                                     1369

      Esakkimuthu v. State Represented by the Inspector of Police


     the deceased person while he was allegedly being indiscriminately
     attacked by the accused persons. Even if this behavior, which was
     certainly unnatural on their part, is not weighed adversely against
     the factum of their presence, considering that different people react
     differently in moments of danger, and that PW-2 was naturally
     worried about the safety of her young son amidst the occurrence
     and, thereby, thought it best not to interfere. Yet, we are unable to
     circumscribe to the account of events which led to PW1 and PW2’s
     presence at the place of occurrence, i.e. having peddled on a bicycle
     for 16 kilometers within less than thirty minutes. This brings forth
     an inherent improbability in the prosecution story which goes to the
     root of the case altogether and cannot be overlooked.
29. Additionally, it also remains highly questionable as to why, after the
    incident, the two eye-witnesses travelled back the entire distance
    of 16 kilometers to their house first and went to the police station
    only subsequently thereafter, despite there being a police station en
    route from the liquor shop to their home. No satisfactory answer to
    such glaring loopholes in the prosecution story has been provided
    by the star witnesses.
30. Therefore, it becomes clear that even though heavy reliance has
    been placed by the Courts below on the testimonies of PW-1 and
    PW-2 in this case to bring home the guilt of the accused persons,
    their presence at the place of crime in itself is highly contentious
    and cannot be said to be proven definitely.
31. This improbability gains even more prominence in light of the fact
    that no other alleged eyewitness has supported the prosecution’s
    case. These alleged eyewitnesses include PW-4 and PW-5, who
    were customers in the TASMAC shop and PW-6, who was the
    manager, and have been declared hostile by the prosecution. These
    eyewitnesses, during their depositions, had stated that four or five
    persons came and attacked the deceased. The post-mortem report
    identifies 26 injuries on the body of the deceased, which in the facts
    and circumstances of the case, are unlikely to be caused by a sole
    assailant and is more probable to be a result of an attack by a group
    of individuals. The fact that the deceased was a habitual drunkard
    and a convicted criminal under the Goondas Act makes it highly
    probable that the deceased had enmities with multiple people who
    may have assaulted him and caused his death.
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32. The above probable explanations for the crime are being listed to
    infer that these possibilities cannot be ruled out, and that the case
    at hand is certainly not the one where it has been proven beyond
    the shadow of doubt that in all human probability, the act must have
    been done by the accused only. On the contrary, there remains an
    impressionable question mark about the presence of the accused
    persons at the spot of the crime itself.
33. From the above discussion, it cannot be said that the prosecution
    has discharged its burden of establishing the guilt of the accused
    persons beyond reasonable doubt. In such circumstances, the
    accused persons have to be declared innocent and there is no
    alternative to such a conclusion.
34. Accordingly, the appeals are allowed. The impugned judgment dated
    10.09.2024 passed by the Madras High Court, as well as the Trial
    Court’s judgment dated 04.03.2020, are hereby, quashed and set
    aside. The appellants are acquitted of the charges alleged against
    them, and are accordingly ordered to be released forthwith unless
    required in connection with any other case.
35. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.

     Result of the case: Appeals allowed.



     †
         Headnotes prepared by: Divya Pandey