Allahabad HC Acquits Three Accused in 1981 Murder Case, Finds Eye-Witnesses Fabricated After the Fact

A Division Bench set aside 40-year-old convictions for murder under Section 302 IPC, holding that the prosecution's two star eye-witnesses were projected with afterthought and their evidence was wholly unreliable.

The High Court of Judicature at Allahabad has acquitted three surviving accused — Ghulam, Hidayatullah, and Azizullah — of charges of murder, rioting, and theft arising from a 1981 shooting incident in District Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh. A Division Bench of Justice Siddharth and Justice Vinai Kumar Dwivedi, with the judgment delivered by Justice Dwivedi, found that the two persons cited by the prosecution as eye-witnesses were in all likelihood not present at the scene, that their accounts contained major internal contradictions, and that the medical evidence from the post-mortem fundamentally undermined the prosecution's narrative of a simultaneous mass firing by twelve accused. The Sessions Court had convicted the appellants in August 1984; the criminal appeal had been pending for over four decades.

The Shooting at Singwahar and the FIR

On 19 September 1981, at around 5:00 p.m., Sarfaraz Ahmad — son of informant Riyaz Ahmad (PW-1) — was ploughing the fields of his relative Shaukat Ali at Singwahar, near village Kot, Police Station Khakhreru, District Fatehpur. According to the written report, Exhibit Ka-1, scribed by Hamid Ali Khan at the informant's request and lodged as FIR Exhibit Ka-2 at 9:30 p.m. that night, a group of thirteen named accused arrived from the direction of village Kot, each armed with guns or rifles. The accused were said to have greeted those present, after which accused Babu @ Munna quietly took the licensed double-barrel gun and cartridge belt of Shabbir, who was sitting on the field boundary. Accused Kammu then exhorted the group to kill Sarfaraz. When Sarfaraz got down from the tractor and tried to run, all the accused allegedly fired simultaneously, causing his death from gunshot wounds.

Riyaz Ahmad stated that he was at his home when Moid Ahmad arrived and informed him of the incident. He then went to the scene and lodged the FIR naming twelve accused: Kammu, Baddu, Mohd. Ali @ Mohd. Dhol, Shafiullah, Zafar, Ghulam, Hidayatullah, Aslam, Azizullah, Manzar Ali, Atiqullah, and Babu @ Munna. The FIR registered offences under Sections 147, 148, 149, 302, 406, and 404 IPC.

Dr. V.K. Tripathi (PW-5) conducted the post-mortem on 21 September 1981 and found three entry wounds and one exit wound from gunshot injuries on the body of Sarfaraz, along with multiple abrasions on the right forearm. The cause of death was shock and haemorrhage resulting from the gunshot injuries.

Trial Court Conviction and the Appeal

Charges were framed on 30 August 1983 under Sections 148, 302, 379, and 404 IPC. The Sessions Court convicted all twelve appellants on 31 August 1984 under those sections, sentencing them to rigorous imprisonment of one year under Section 148, life imprisonment under Section 302 read with Section 149, and rigorous imprisonment of three years each under Sections 379 and 404, all running concurrently.

The accused preferred Criminal Appeal No. 2417 of 1984. During the pendency of the appeal, nine of the twelve appellants died: Kammu, Baddu, Mohd. Ali @ Mohd. Dhol, Shafiullah, Zafar, Aslam, Manzar Ali, Atiqullah, and Babu @ Munna. The appeal abated against them. The Division Bench heard the appeal only in respect of the three surviving appellants: Ghulam, Hidayatullah, and Azizullah.

Why the Prosecution's Eye-Witnesses Failed Scrutiny

The prosecution relied principally on two persons as eye-witnesses of the shooting: Moid Ahmad (PW-2), who was said to have accompanied Sarfaraz on the tractor, and Shabbir (PW-3), who said he had gone to hunt francolin birds and happened to sit near the field boundary just before the accused arrived.

Moid Ahmad (PW-2): The bench identified a direct and irreconcilable contradiction in this witness's account of how he came to be at the scene. At one point in his evidence, he said he went from his home at Shahnagar to the house of Sarfaraz at village Adhaiya and then proceeded with Sarfaraz on the tractor. At another point, he stated plainly that he went directly from Shahnagar to Singwahar and did not pass through any other village. Informant Riyaz Ahmad (PW-1) also corroborated the first version, saying Moid Ahmad had gone on the tractor with Sarfaraz. The bench found these two versions to be major and material contradictions that created strong and reasonable doubt about whether this witness was actually at Singwahar when the incident occurred. The bench observed that the witness could not explain why the Investigating Officer's record of his Section 161 statement differed from what he was now saying in court.

The bench also noted that Moid Ahmad stated that all accused had been abusing and threatening the witnesses at the scene, but in cross-examination admitted he had not told this to the Investigating Officer and could offer no reason for the omission. Critically, this account of threats was flatly contradicted by the other eye-witness, Shabbir (PW-3), who stated that the accused had not threatened to kill the witnesses.

Shabbir (PW-3): The bench found Shabbir's conduct inexplicable on the prosecution's own version. According to the prosecution, accused Babu @ Munna openly snatched Shabbir's licensed double-barrel gun and belt of cartridges in plain sight. Shabbir said he neither uttered a word of protest nor attempted to recover his weapon. He admitted in cross-examination that he never lodged a separate FIR about the snatching of his gun, relying entirely on the mention of the incident in the informant's FIR. He had not filed any proceedings before any court or authority to recover his licensed firearm even by the time he deposed in court. The bench found this conduct highly unnatural and inconsistent with that of a licensed gun-holder who had just had his weapon forcibly taken from him. The conclusion reached was that Shabbir was also not present at the place of occurrence and had been projected by the prosecution with afterthought to fill the role of a witness.

Medical Evidence Against the Prosecution's Account

Both Moid Ahmad (PW-2) and Shabbir (PW-3) testified that all twelve accused fired simultaneously upon Sarfaraz with their respective guns and rifles. The bench applied elementary logic to this claim: if twelve armed persons had simultaneously opened fire on a single target, the dead body should have borne at minimum twelve entry wounds. The post-mortem report, Exhibit Ka-4, prepared by Dr. V.K. Tripathi (PW-5), found only two entry wounds and one exit wound from gunshots on the body of Sarfaraz.

The prosecution attempted to account for additional shots by pointing to three punctured tractor tyres. Even accepting that argument, the bench observed, the total shots attributable would be only five — far short of twelve simultaneous firings. The bench referred to the Supreme Court's decision in Khambam Raja Reddy and another v. Public Prosecutor, High Court of Andhra Pradesh, (2006) 11 SCC 239, which held that where ocular evidence cannot be related to the injuries suffered by the victim in the manner projected, the court has discretion to reject the ocular evidence. Applying that principle, the bench held that the medical evidence did not support the oral testimony of the two so-called eye-witnesses, creating a major and material contradiction that further undermined the prosecution story.

Adding to this, neither Moid Ahmad (PW-2) nor Shabbir (PW-3) saw any pellets, bullets, empty cartridges, or projectile fragments at the place of occurrence. The Investigating Officer, Lal Singh Chandel (PW-6), also recovered no such material despite searching the scene. The bench found that if twelve persons had fired simultaneously, it would be a natural consequence that some pellets, bullets, or empty cartridges would fall at the spot. The absence of any such recovery reinforced doubt about the prosecution's account.

Fabrication Suggested by Prosecution Witness Rahmatullah

The bench drew particular attention to the evidence of Rahmatullah (PW-7), who had been brought to photograph the scene. Rahmatullah stated in his deposition that when he arrived at the place of occurrence to take photographs, the tractor was standing intact. A police inspector then told him to wait and directed someone to burst the tyres first. After a policeman fired to burst the tyres, the inspector told Rahmatullah to photograph the scene. Although the prosecution declared this witness hostile and extensively cross-examined him, Rahmatullah maintained in cross-examination that before he arrived, one back wheel and one front wheel were already burst, and that after about one and a half hours at the scene, a policeman burst the remaining tyres.

The bench found this evidence — when read together with the accounts of Moid Ahmad (PW-2) and Shabbir (PW-3) — cast a cloud of suspicion over the entire prosecution story, suggesting that the scene had been tampered with before photographs were taken.

Failure to Recover Weapons

The bench observed a further investigative gap: the Investigating Officer made no attempt to recover the guns and rifles allegedly used by the twelve accused. Since the prosecution's case was that twelve persons fired on Sarfaraz with both licensed and unlicensed firearms, the Investigating Officer was duty-bound to recover those weapons from the accused or their homes. No such recovery was made. This omission further undermined the prosecution case.

Legal Standards Applied

The bench set out three propositions from Supreme Court decisions that governed its analysis.

On enmity as a ground for conviction, the bench referred to Sushil and others v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1995 SCC (Cri.) 388 and State of Punjab v. Sucha Singh, (2003) 3 SCC 153, which collectively hold that enmity “is a double aged weapon which cut both ways” — it may constitute motive for the crime but equally may provide a motive for false implication. The bench found that enmity and rivalry between the parties was amply established on both sides: Riyaz Ahmad had been Village Pradhan for ten years, criminal cases were pending between the two groups, and even Shabbir had a separate enmity with the accused over a fair price shop licence. However, enmity alone, the bench held, cannot sustain a conviction for murder.

On suspicion as a substitute for proof, the bench cited Sujit Biswas v. State of Assam, (2013) 12 SCC 406, which holds that suspicion, however grave, cannot take the place of proof, and that the prosecution must cover the distance from “may be true” to “must be true” by clear, cogent, and unimpeachable evidence.

On the duty of the High Court as the first appellate court, the bench applied Badam Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2003) 12 SCC 792, which requires the High Court to critically scrutinise the evidence in detail and not simply affirm a conviction because witnesses were consistent in their statements, since the consistency of witnesses is not a sure guarantee of their truthfulness. The bench found that the Trial Court had failed to appreciate the prosecution evidence in a legal and proper manner and had relied on enmity and rivalry as if those alone were sufficient to record a finding of guilt.

Outcome

The Division Bench allowed Criminal Appeal No. 2417 of 1984 in respect of the three surviving appellants. It set aside the judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 31 August 1984 passed by the Sessions Court in Sessions Trial No. 619 of 1981 (State v. Kammu and others), connected with Sessions Trial Nos. 284 of 1982, 284 of 1983, and 341 of 1982, all arising out of Case Crime No. 143 of 1981 under Sections 148, 302, 379, and 404 IPC, Police Station Khakhreru, District Fatehpur. Ghulam, Hidayatullah, and Azizullah were acquitted of all charges. As the three appellants were on bail, they were directed not to surrender; their bail bonds were cancelled and sureties discharged. A copy of the judgment was directed to be sent to the Trial Court along with the trial record for compliance.