High Court conviction for murder is set aside as identity and recoveries fail to connect accused to crime

A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale heard appeals challenging the High Court’s reversal of acquittal and conviction of three men for murder under Section 302 IPC. The appeals assailed the High Court judgment insofar as it convicted the father, his son and son‑in‑law for the killing of Pushpendra Singh, raising central questions on ocular identification, admissibility of disclosures leading to recovery and the scope of appellate interference with an acquittal.

The Court allowed the appeals, set aside the High Court’s conviction and restored the benefit of doubt to the appellants, concluding that their identity as the assailants was not established by cogent evidence and that recoveries did not connect them to the crime. The judges emphasised that only that part of information which “relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered” was admissible under Section 27 of the Evidence Act and that confessional material remained inadmissible under Sections 25 and 26. The Court, in its reasoning, observed: “The aforesaid decision has recently been followed with approval by the Division Bench of this Court in Manjunath and Ors. vs. State of Karnataka wherein it has been said that only ‘so much of the information’ as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered is admissible, and the rest of the information stands excluded. In other words, the information leading to the recovery of the weapons of crime is admissible, but not the information that the crime was actually committed by the said weapons.” The bench also recorded that “it is safer and more appropriate to rely upon the findings of the Trial Court which has seen the demeanor of the witnesses,” and found that the High Court had “manifestly erred in interfering with the findings of acquittal” without any perverse or demonstrably erroneous basis.

Background: The prosecution said that on 3 June 2000 the three accused chased and attacked Pushpendra Singh with swords and a kanta after an earlier quarrel between his family and the appellants over digging a field. The deceased was alleged to have run into the house of Mukhtyar Singh where the assailants followed and inflicted fatal blows; the deceased’s father lodged an FIR at 2:50 p.m. The trial court acquitted the accused, but the High Court allowed the State’s appeal, convicted the three under Section 302 IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

Before this Court, the appellants maintained they were falsely implicated and that identity was not established. The State relied on the testimony of the victim’s father (PW‑1), a local witness (PW‑2) and the lady of the house who saw the assault (Amarjeet Kaur, PW‑7), as well as recoveries of swords and a kanta allegedly based on disclosures by the accused. The judges scrutinised the ocular testimony and noted material inconsistencies: PW‑7 said she saw three unknown persons assaulting the deceased but did not know their names; PW‑1’s claim to have been present was belied by timing and other witnesses; several purported eyewitnesses were chance witnesses whose presence was not satisfactorily explained; and independent local shopkeepers or field labourers were not examined to corroborate the prosecution case.

On recoveries, the Court observed that weapons were recovered from a garage and from bushes after pointing out by the accused but no forensic evidence was produced to link blood on the weapons to the deceased. Applying Sections 25–27 Evidence Act and established precedents, the Court held that only the information leading to discovery was admissible and that admissions that the recovered items were the weapons of offence could not be read as confessions. The bench found that neither ocular evidence nor recoveries established the appellants’ guilt beyond reasonable doubt and that the High Court had no proper basis to overturn the trial court’s acquittal; accordingly, the conviction was set aside and the appellants were acquitted and discharged from their bail bonds.

Case No.: Criminal Appeal Nos. 476-477 of 2013 Case Title: Rajendra Singh and Ors. v. State of Uttaranchal etc. Appearances: For the Petitioner(s): Shri Rajul Bhargava, Senior Advocate; Shri Siddharth Agarwal, Senior Advocate; Shri Vivek Singh, Advocate‑on‑Record For the Respondent(s): Shri Kuldeep Parihar, Deputy Advocate General; Ms. Anubha Dhulia, Advocate