Conviction for murder converted to culpable homicide not amounting to murder; sentence set off as time served with fine imposed

A three-judge Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai, K.V. Viswanathan and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh heard the criminal appeal by Goverdhan and another challenging the Division Bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur which had affirmed their conviction for offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC while acquitting their father. The appellants contested the concurrent findings of the trial court and High Court primarily on grounds of parity with the acquitted co-accused, reliance on the sole eye-witness (the mother of the deceased), delay in recording statements and hostile prosecution witnesses.

The Court affirmed that interference with concurrent findings required proof of perversity or ignoring material evidence and undertook a careful re-appreciation of the record. The Court emphasised the method of marshaling evidence: The Court, in its reasoning, observed: “In case of a crime committed, upon completion of investigation by the investigation agency, the accused are brought before the court to face trial. Under our criminal jurisprudence, the court ordinarily is not privy to the evidence collected during the investigation by the investigation agency. After completion of the investigation, what is brought before the trial court is an array of evidence, both documentary and oral, collected by the investigating agency against the accused which are required to be marshalled and analyzed by the court to arrive at appropriate conclusions. The prosecution seeks to recreate the incident of crime before the court in sequence, based on the evidence so collected, linking the accused with the commission of crime. Such recreation of crime by the prosecution before the court is akin to putting the evidence together as in a jigsaw puzzle whereby all the relevant pieces of evidence are put together to complete the picture of the crime. The prime responsibility of the court is to see whether this jigsaw puzzle has been properly placed by the prosecution from which a clear picture emerges as to the happening of the incident with the assigned role of the accused as part of the aforesaid jigsaw puzzle.” The Court held that the evidence on record — notably the eye-witness testimony of the deceased’s mother (PW-10), the FIR and contemporaneous medical record and the Investigating Officer’s account of recoveries — was cogent and corroborative and not vitiated by the alleged defects. While rejecting the submission of parity with the acquitted father, the Court concluded that the role of the father did not stand clearly proved. The Court therefore converted the conviction from Section 302 IPC to Part I of Section 304 IPC: “Accordingly, we convict the appellants under Part I of Section 304 IPC.” In sentencing, the Court held that interest of justice would be served by setting off the period already undergone and directing payment of a fine of Rs.50,000 each to the victim’s family, failing which six months simple imprisonment would follow; on payment the bail bonds were to stand discharged.

Background The prosecution case arose from an incident on 23 September 2001 in Tilda, Chhattisgarh, where Suraj suffered multiple injuries in a violent assault reportedly with an axe (tangiya) and an iron pipe and died on 25 September 2001. The informant Santosh (PW-6) lodged an FIR within half an hour of the incident. The trial court convicted all three accused on 6 March 2002 for murder and sentenced them to life. On appeal the High Court affirmed conviction of Goverdhan and Rajendra but acquitted their father Chintaram. Before the Supreme Court the appellants argued illegality in relying on the solitary eye-witness — Lata Bai (mother of the deceased) — whose statement under Section 161 CrPC was recorded five days after the incident and whose testimony, they said, showed improvements and contradictions; they also stressed that several non-official witnesses turned hostile and recovery witnesses disowned their statements. The prosecution relied on the FIR, the medical records which identified the assailants’ names shortly after the assault, the medical opinion linking injuries to the seized weapons and recoveries made at the instance of the appellants, and invoked precedents that delay in examination was not fatal if plausibly explained (State of U.P. v. Satish) and that concurrent findings should not be lightly disturbed (Mekala Sivaiah). The Supreme Court analysed credibility, observed that PW-6’s FIR filing was proved and that PW-10’s presence and conduct were consistent with being an eyewitness; it discounted the hostility of neighbours as more likely attributable to local influences and noted medical corroboration and police testimony. Distinguishing the facts from authorities relied upon by appellants (including State of Orissa v. Brahmananda Nanda), the Court found no grave miscarriage of justice in the findings but, on facts showing absence of premeditation and that death ensued after a period, reduced legal characterisation to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The appeal was partly allowed: convictions were reclassified to Section 304 Part I IPC and sentence adjusted to time already served with fines and default imprisonment as directed. The Court recorded that appellants had earlier been enlarged on bail by this Court on 6 January 2012; on payment of the fine the bail bonds were to be discharged.

Case Details: Case No.: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 116 OF 2011 (2025 INSC 47) Case Title: Goverdhan & Anr. v. State of Chhattisgarh Appearances: For the Petitioner(s): Not indicated in the judgment text For the Respondent(s): Not indicated in the judgment text