Holding

The appellate court held that the High Court's acquittal was not infirm and, lacking any compelling reason, could not be disturbed.

Summary

The State of Uttar Pradesh appealed the Allahabad High Court's acquittal of three accused who had been convicted for murder under Sections 302, 34 and 201 of the IPC. The prosecution's case relied on the identification of a decomposed body recovered a month after the incident, based solely on the clothes worn, and on the testimony of an informant, a child witness, and an eye‑witness who later retracted his statement. The High Court found the identification unreliable, noted contradictions in the informant's statements, tampering of evidence, and the child’s testimony as tutored, and consequently acquitted the accused. The Supreme Court examined whether an appellate court may interfere with an acquittal and whether the High Court’s findings were infirm. It held that interference is permissible only on compelling and substantial grounds and that the High Court’s reasoning was sound and not infirm. Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s appeal, upholding the acquittal.

Issues considered

Whether the appellate court can interfere with a judgment of acquittal on the basis of the evidence record.
Whether the identification of the dead body and the testimony of the informant, child witness, and eye‑witness were sufficient to sustain a conviction under Sections 302, 34 and 201 IPC.
Whether the High Court erred in acquitting the accused on the ground of unreliable and contradictory evidence.

Legislation cited

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973
Constitution of Indias. Article 136
Indian Penal Code, 1860s. 201, s. 302, s. 34

Subjects

appeal against acquittalidentification of dead bodywitness reliabilitycriminal procedurepresumption of innocencemiscarriage of justice

Judgment

+
STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH A
v.
RAM VEER SINGH AND ORS.

SEPTEMBER 5, 2007

(DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT AND D.K. JAIN, JJ.) B

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973:

Appeal against acquittal-In an appeal against conviction ulss. 3021
34 and 2QJ !PC High Court finding prosecution evidence col)tradictory and C
unreliable-Besides, dead body found after one month from a pond-Identity
based solely on clothes worn by corpse-Ocular evidence not supported by
autopsy report-Acquittal by High Court-Appeal against-HELD: Keeping
in view the principles with regard to appeal against acquittal, on facts, the
findings arrived at by High Court and order of acquittal do not suffer from D·
any infirmity to warrant interference-Penal Code, 1860-ss. 302134 and
201-Constitution of India-Article 136.

Three accused-respondents were prosecuted under ss. 302/34 and 201
IPC. The prosecution case was that on the day of incident, when after the day's
work, PW-I, the informant, along with her husband and their son PW-7, were E
returning home at about sunset, the three accused armed with 'gandasa,
ballam and lathi' came from behind and attacked her husband. Hearing their
cries some villagers reached there, but as they were chased by the accused
they abandoned the scene. The accused dragged the victim by his feet Later,
PW-I was said to have returned to the place of incident with the village F
chowkidar but they could not locate the body of the deceased. PW-I lodged
the FIR the following day at 9.15 A.M. A decomposed body was said to have
been recovered from a pond at the instance of the chowkidar of the village
after a month and it was identified by PW-1 as of her husband solely on the
basis of the clothes worn by the corpse. The trial court convicted the accused
of the offences charged and sentenced them, inter alia, to imprisonment for G
life.

In appeal before the High Court, the accused reiterating their challenge
to the identity of the dead body, submitted that the autopsy report indicated
that the body bore no marks of injury, cut or fracture; and that the scalp and
689 H
690 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2007] 9 S.C.R

A most of the organs below the neck to the wrist were found missing. The High
Court found that PW-4, who was produced as eye-witness, resiled from the
statements made during the investigation; statements of PW-1 were
contradictory and her evidence was totally unreliable; her conduct during the
trial was not above board; though she was married to the deceased, but at the
B time of incident she was not living with him; the investigating officer admitted
that seals of two containers in which blood stained earth and samples had
been kept were found to be tampered with; he did not produce the case diary.
The High Court further held that in the absence of any definite material to
prove that the dead body recovered was that of the deCeased, prosecution version
was doubtful; the evidence of the child witness (PW-7) who was 5-6 years of
C age at the time ~f incident, i.e. two years before his deposition in Court, was
not reliable as he appeared to have been tutored. In these circumstances, the
High .Court held that the prosecution failed to establish its case, and acquitted
the accused of all the charges. Aggrieved, the State filed the instant appeal.

Dismissing the appeal, the Court
D
HELD: The principle to be followed by appellate Court considering the
appeal against the judgment of acquittal is to interfere only when there are ~
compelling and substantial reasons for doing so. If the impugned judgment is
clearly unreasonable, and relevant and convincing materials have been
unjustifiably eliminated in the process, it is a compelling reason for
E interference. In the instant case, the reasons indicated by the High Court for
recording the order of acquittal do not suffer from any infirmity to warrant
interference. [Para 9 and. 10) (694-D-G)

Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade and Anr. v. State of Maharashtra, AIR (1973)'
SC 2622; Ramesh Babula/ Doshi v. State ofGujarat, (1996) 4 Supreme 167;
F Jaswant Singh v. State of Haryana, (2000) 3 Supreme 320; Raj Kishore Jha
v. State of Bihar and Ors., (2003) 7 Supreme 152; State of Punjab v. Kamai/
Singh, (2003) 5 Supreme 508; State ofPunjab v. Pohla Singh and Anr., (2003)
7 Supreme 17; V.N Ratheesh v. State of Kera/a, (2006] 10 SCC 617 and
Bhagwan Sing and Ors. v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2002) 2 Supreme 567,
G relied on.

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JUR1SDICTION : Criminal Appeal No. 448 of
2001. ....

From the final Judgment and Order dated 17.12.1999 of the High Court
H of Judicature at Allahabad in Criminal Appeal No. 1706 of 1980.
STATE v. RAMVEERSINGH[PASAYAT,J.] 691

Mohd. Faijail Khan, Anuvrat Shanna, V.K. Shukla and Praveen Swarup A
for the Appellant.

Goodwill Indeevar, Varun Goswami and Anu Mohla for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
B
DR. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J. I. Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment
of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court setting aside the conviction
of the respondents for offences punishable under Section 302 read with
Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short 'the Act') and Section 201,
IPC. Each of the respondents was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life
f9r the offence relatable to. Section 302/34 IPC and four years' for the oth_er C
offence.

2. The prosecution case in a nutshell is as follows.

Dal Chand (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased') along with his wife
Smt. Raj Kaur, the infonnant (PW-1) and their son Paramjeet Singh (PW-7) had D
gone to graze their cattle. At about sunset time on their way back to their
house they reached the courtyard of Ganga Ram. They were acco~ted by the
appellants who came out from behind the bushes. Accused Ram Veer Singh
was armed with a gandasa, Suresh was holding a Ballam and Chet Ram was
possessing a lathi. They started belaboring the deceased Dal Chand, with E
their respective weapons by saying that he should not be spared. The cries
of the above witness and the victim attracted Chottey, Ganga Ram and Dhyan
Singh all residents of Mohanpur to the spot. On a challenge being given by
them the assailants started dragging the victim by holding him by his feet.
When they were challenged they rushed towards the witnesses also and the
witnesses thereafter abandoned the chase of the assailants. They came back F
to the village and after sometime the informant had gone to the spot with the
village Chowkidar. She did not find the body of her husband at the spot
although blood was found lying there. The search for Dal Chand was conducted
by his wife through out the night but he could not be located or found. No
villager was infonned or taken into confidence by her.
G
The motive of this murder as is apparent from the FIR was to avenge
the murder of Raghuvir Singh resident of village Bhadaria. Ram Veer Singh
was nursing a suspicion that deceased Dal Chand, was instrumental behind
the murder of Raghuvir. The FIR of the present incident was lodged at the
police station, Ganeshkhera by Smt. Raj Kaur on the next day at 9.15 A.M. H
692 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2007) 9 S.C.R.
. . ,I
A The body of the victim was discovered from a pond which was fuJI of water
after a month of the occurrence. It was first discovered by the .' •
village
J
Chowkidar. He informed Smt. Raj Kaur who identified the corpse so recovered
from the pond of village Bhadaria as that of her husband Dal Chand. )d~~tity
was based solely from the clothes worn by the corpse. After identification of
the corpse she informed the concerned police station at about 7 P.M. After
B completion of investigation charge sheet w~ filed and charges were framed.

3. The accused persons pleaded innocence. They seriously challenged
the identity of the dead body as t.hat of the deceased. The Trial Court fo1:1nd
the accused persons guilty and convicted and sentenced them, as aforesaid.
C Before the High Court, the accused persons took the plea that the. autopsy
conducted by Dr. K.S. Tewari (PW-2) indicated that the body bore no 'marks
of injury. Most of the organs below the neck to the wrist were found missing
by the Doctor. Scalp too was found missing but the skull bones were fo,und
intact. They bore no mark of any injury, i.e. any cut or fracture. The body ~as
found in highly decomposed state. The clothes did not have any mark of
D assault by weapons or blood stains. It was also submitted that the evidence
of PW-I did not inspire confidence. Her testimony was full of contradictions
and it was apparent that she was not telling the truth. The evidence of the
child witness (PW-7) was also found to be fragile and the court should .not
have acted on it.

E 4. The stand of the State, on the other hand, w~s that the evidence was
sufficient to fasten the guilt on the accused persons.

5. The High Court analyJ;ed the material on record and the conclusions
arrived at by the Trial Court. It noted that PW-4, Chhotey Lal, who was
F claimed by the prosecution to be one of the eye-witnesses resiled from the
statements made during investigation. It was found that the dead body was
found from a pond which was full of water after about a month. The evidence
of PW-I was found to be totally unreliable. She claimed that she had gone
to the police station with the blood of her husband which was collected from
the spot next morning. According to her, this was done by her after lodging
G the F.1.R. The High Court noticed that her testimony was that first she went
to the police station to lodge the report. After that, she came back and went
to police station with blood on the second occasion. She had admitted that
it was raining very heavily and it continued to rain throughout the day. She
had admitted that when she had gone to report the case at the police station,
it was raining. She did not come out as it continued to rain until evening. The
H
STATE v. RAMVEERSINGH[PASAYAT,J.] 693
> High Court found it hard to believe that she had gone with the blood taken A
from the spot to the police station. Her statement was also controverted by
the investigating officer who stated that he had recovered the blood and
sample of earth from the spot of occurrence the next day. The time of lodging
the FIR was found to be suspicious by the High Court in view of several
contradictory statements made by PW-I. The investigating-0fficer also admitted
in his cross examination that the seals of the two containers in which blood B
stained earth and samples had been kept were found to be tampered with.

6. The investigating officer had admitted that he had .recorded the
statement ofChhotey Lal (PW-4) on 31.8.1978 as this witness was not available
earlier. The case diary interestingly was not produced during trial by the C
investigating officer. The High Court found that in the absence of any definite
material to prove that the dead body was that of the deceased, the prosecution
version was rendered to that extent, doubtful. Since PW-4 resiled from his
statement made earlier, the High Court examined the evidence of PW-J in
detail. With reference to her evidence, it was noticed that her relationship with
the deceased was not free from doubt. She claimed that she was married to D
the deceased. But the child witness whose evidence was otherwise found to
be not sufficient to fasten the guilt of accused, stated that she was not living
with the deceased on the relevant date. It was noted by the High Court that
PW-I from the next day of murder was staying with one lkram. It was noted
by the High Court that the village Chowkidar who was supposed to have E
searched for the dead body, was not examined and no explanation was offered ·
by the prosecution for the non-examination. The High Court noted that PW-
l's conduct was totally not above board during tria I. She filed an affidavit and
an application in the court to show that she was not aware of the incident,
as alleged. Though the High Court found that these papers were not exhibited,
yet, taking into account the admission of PW-I that she had in fact put her F
thumb impression on these documents, found that to be a factor throwing
doubt on the credibility of PW-1.

7. So far as Paramjeet (PW-7) is concerned, his evidence was also found
to be not reliable because he appeared to have been tutored. He was aged
about 7-8 years when he gave the statement on 11.7.1980. The incident had G
occurred on 24.08.1978, i.e. nearly two years before his deposition. That
means that he was about 5-6 years old at the time of incident. The High Court,
with reference to his evidence found that the testimony he gave in court was
the result of tutoring. In these circumstances, the High Court concluded that
the prosecution has failed to establish the accusation. H
694 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (2007) 9 S.C.R.

A 8. Though learned counsel for the State submitted that the circumstances
highlighted by the prosecution were sufficient to record conviction, we find
that the High Court has examined aJl the relevant aspects in detail and bas
recorded the judgment of acquittal.
.
9. There is no embargo on the appellate Court reviewing the evidence'
B upon which an order ,of acquittal is based. Geperally, the ord~r of acquittal
shall not be interfered with because the presumption of innocence of the
accused is further strengthened by acquittal. The golden thread which runs
through the web of administration of justice in criminal cases is that if two
views are possible on the evidence adduced in the case, one po_inting to the
C guilt of t~e accused and the other to his innocence, the view, which is
favourable to the accused should be adopted. The paramount consideration
of the Court is to ensure that miscarriage of justice is prevented. A miscarriage
of justice which may arise from acquittal of the guilty is no less than from
the conviction of an ip.nocent. In a case where admissible evidence is ignored,
a duty is cast upon the ~ppellate Court to re-appreciate the evidence where
D the accused has been acquitted, for the purpose of ascertaining as to whether
any of the accused really committed any offence or not. [See Bhagwan Singh
and Ors. v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2002) 2 Supreme 567). The principle
to be followed by appellate Court considering the appeal against the judgment
of acquittal is to interfere only when there are compelling and substantial
E r~asons for doing so. Ifthe impugned judgment is clearly unreasonable and
relevant and convincing materials have been unjustifiably eliminated in the
process, . it is a compelling reason for interference. These aspects were
highlighted by this Court in Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade and Anr. v. State of
Maharashtra, AIR ( 1973) SC 2622, Ramesh Babula/ Doshi v. State ofGujarat,
( 1996) 4 Supreme 167, Jaswant Singh v. State of Haryana, (2000) 3 Supreme
F 320, Raj Kishore Jha v. State of Bihar and Ors., (2093) 7 Supreme 152, State
of Punjab v. Karnail Singh, (2003) 5 Supreme 508, State of Punjab v. Pohla
Singh and Anr., (2003) 7 Supreme 17 and V.N. Ratheesh v. State of Kera/a,
[2006) 10 sec 617.

10. In the instant case, we find that.the reasons indicated by the High
G Court for recording the order of a~quittal do not suffer. from any infirmity to
warrant interference. The appeal is accordingly dismissed.

RP. Appeal dismissed.