Allahabad HC Acquits Three in 1996 Double Murder, Rejects Planted Witnesses and Weaponless Recovery Chain
The High Court found that all three last-seen witnesses withheld their accounts until after the bodies were identified, and the recovered weapons lacked disclosure statements or blood-group linkage to the deceased.
A Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, comprising Justice Siddharth and Justice Vinai Kumar Dwivedi, has set aside a Sessions Court conviction in a double murder that took place on the night of 11–12 December 1996 in Nawabganj, Farrukhabad. The judgment, delivered by Justice Vinai Kumar Dwivedi on 30 July 2026, acquits the three surviving appellants — Shiv Pal, Nar Singh @ Naiya, and Dharamveer @ Dharampal — after holding that the prosecution's entire case rested on witnesses who concealed what they claimed to have seen and on a weapon recovery conducted without any recorded disclosure statement. The court found the Trial Court's reasoning perverse and the conviction unsustainable in law.
The Crime and the Trial Court's Conviction
On 12 December 1996, Mohd. Yunus (PW-6), a local resident of Ganipur, Nawabganj, filed a written report (Exhibit Ka-6) at Police Station Nawabganj after learning that two unidentified bodies were lying in a wheat field near the Block Compound. The FIR was registered at 13:30 hours against unknown persons under Section 302 IPC. Investigation revealed the deceased to be Sobaran, son of Hariram, and Awadhesh, son of Ram Chandra.
After the bodies were identified, Hariram (PW-1), father of deceased Sobaran, filed a second written report (Exhibit Ka-1) naming accused persons including Feru Singh, Nar Singh @ Naiya, Dharamveer, Sobaran son of Maiku Lal, and Shiv Pal Singh. The motive alleged was an old enmity: Feru Singh had suspected Hariram's family of killing his son Satish Chandra, who had died of a snakebite in October 1996. Hariram's report stated that on the evening of 11 December 1996, the deceased were seen at Nawabganj crossroad and later followed by the accused into the darkness.
Post-mortem conducted by Dr. Arun Prakash Chaturvedi (PW-10) confirmed multiple deep incised wounds on both bodies. The cause of death in both cases was recorded as haemorrhage and shock due to ante-mortem injuries. On 27 December 1996, three accused were arrested at Manjhana railway station, and a Garasa and Takora (Kulhari) were reportedly recovered from a pool near the hut of Shiv Raj Singh on their pointing out, with recovery memo Exhibit Ka-5 prepared by Sub-Inspector Rajaram Suman (PW-5).
The Trial Court framed charges under Sections 148 and 302 read with Section 149 IPC on 21 April 1999. After trial, it convicted all accused appellants on 19 July 2000, sentencing each to two years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000 under Section 148 IPC, and life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 10,000 under Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC. All sentences were directed to run concurrently. The surviving appellants appealed to the High Court.
During the pendency of the appeal, appellant Nos. 1, 2, and 4 — Sobaran son of Maiku Lal, Shivraj son of Maiku Lal, and Feru Singh — died, and the appeal abated as to them. The Juvenile Justice Board, Etah separately declared appellant No. 5, Nar Singh @ Naiya, to be a juvenile in the same case. The High Court accordingly adjudicated the appeal only in respect of Shiv Pal (appellant No. 3), Nar Singh @ Naiya (appellant No. 5), and Dharamveer @ Dharampal (appellant No. 6).
Why the Last-Seen Witnesses Failed
The prosecution projected Ram Niwas (PW-2), Shyam Singh (PW-3), and Indresh Singh (PW-4) as witnesses of the “last seen together” of the deceased with the accused. The High Court examined each account in detail and found all three witnesses unreliable.
Ram Niwas (PW-2) stated that on the evening of 11 December 1996 he saw the accused going behind the deceased at Nawabganj crossroad. Yet in cross-examination he accepted that he had not told Hariram PW-1 what he had seen when he returned to the village on 11 December 1996, and had not visited Hariram's home to check whether Sobaran had returned safely. He disclosed what he claimed to have seen only after hearing a rumour about two dead bodies on 12 December 1996 — and only when he happened to meet Hariram at the scene, after the bodies had already been identified at 13:30 hours.
Shyam Singh (PW-3) offered a more detailed account: he said he saw the accused and the deceased walking together near the Block Compound at around 8:00 PM on 11 December 1996, with the accused speaking about settling a compromise. He told the court he stayed silent because of the large crowd at the scene the next day. Critically, in cross-examination he also admitted that he had never told anyone that he had seen the deceased drinking wine near the Block Compound. The court found this conduct “highly suspicious” and his evidence unworthy of credit.
Indresh Singh (PW-4) was the elder brother of the deceased Awadhesh. He testified that on the morning of 11 December 1996, accused persons came to his home at village Bhadki and took both Awadhesh and Sobaran with them on the pretext of a compromise. Yet he admitted in cross-examination that he never disclosed this fact to the Investigating Officer, not even at the place of occurrence where both bodies were found. He only mentioned it at Hariram's house during the cremation ceremony the following morning.
The High Court observed that the failure of all three witnesses to promptly communicate what they saw to Hariram PW-1, to the police, or to any responsible person — instead revealing it only after the bodies had been publicly identified on 12 December 1996 — cast a grave doubt on the veracity of their evidence. The court concluded that these witnesses were “planted and projected” by the prosecution with afterthought to support the case, and that none of them could genuinely be treated as a last-seen witness.
The bench applied the Supreme Court's five-point test from Sharad Birdhi Chand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116, which requires the chain of circumstantial evidence to be complete, consistent only with the guilt of the accused, and excluding every other reasonable hypothesis. It also relied on Rambraksh @ Jalim v. State of Chhattisgarh (2016) 12 SCC 251 and Krishnan alias Ramasamy v. State of Tamil Nadu (2014) 12 SCC 279 for the proposition that last-seen evidence is weak and cannot by itself sustain a conviction without corroborating circumstances completing the chain.
The Weapon Recovery That Could Not Be Linked
The Trial Court had also relied on the recovery of a blood-stained Garasa and Takora from a pool near Shiv Raj Singh's hut on 27 December 1996. The FSL report (Exhibit Ka-34) confirmed human blood on both weapons but did not state that the blood belonged to either of the deceased, Sobaran or Awadhesh.
The High Court found two independent reasons to discard this recovery entirely. First, the FSL report's silence on blood-group linkage meant the human blood on the weapons could not be connected to the two victims. The court observed that it would be “very dangerous” to hold any person guilty solely on the basis of a weapon bearing unattributed human blood.
Second, and more fundamentally, the High Court noted that the case record contained no disclosure statement by any of the accused recording that they had hidden the weapons at the alleged spot. The Investigating Officer, Shivraj Singh (PW-8), had not reduced any such disclosure to writing before taking the accused to the recovery site. Relying on Wadla Bheemaraidu v. State of Telangana 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3589, the court reiterated that information under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act must be proved as voluntary and recorded before the discovery; only the part that distinctly leads to discovery is admissible. Without a disclosure memo, the recovery memo Exhibit Ka-5 was rendered suspicious and legally unreliable. The Trial Court's reliance on it was therefore against settled principles of law.
Outcome
The High Court set aside the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 19 July 2000 passed by the Trial Court in S.T. No. 138 of 1997 in its entirety as it applied to Shiv Pal (appellant No. 3), Nar Singh @ Naiya (appellant No. 5), and Dharamveer @ Dharampal (appellant No. 6). The criminal appeal was allowed. Since all three surviving appellants were on bail at the time of the judgment, their personal bonds were cancelled and their sureties discharged from liability. The court directed that the judgment be sent with the trial court record for necessary compliance forthwith.