Blackening Around Wound, Impossible Site Plan, and Unexplained Injuries on Accused: Allahabad HC Acquits Three Men Convicted Under Section 307 IPC
The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow Bench set aside a seven-year rigorous imprisonment conviction, finding the prosecution evidence riddled with physical impossibilities and material contradictions.
The Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, on 25 August 2026 acquitted three men — Aarif Ali alias Aarif, Mohd Kamil alias Guddu, and Abdul Rauf — who had been convicted under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment each, along with a fine of Rs. 20,000 each. Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, sitting singly, allowed two connected criminal appeals together by a common judgment after finding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The court identified a cluster of physical impossibilities in the prosecution's account: the presence of blackening around the wounds was inconsistent with the alleged firing distance of 22 steps, the site plan showed no opening in the wall through which the shots could have been fired, and the prosecution offered no explanation for four injuries suffered by one of the accused during the same incident.
The Incident and the Trial Court's Conviction
The case originated from an FIR lodged on 9 September 2006 at Police Station Phulbehad, District Kheri. The complainant, Subarati son of Hafizulla, stated in his written complaint that while returning from namaz at around 6:30 p.m., he found his children quarrelling with the children of appellant Rauf near his house. When he intervened, the three accused — armed with country-made pistols — fired at him with intent to kill. He suffered pellet injuries on his face, neck, and chest. The FIR was registered as Case Crime No. 388 of 2006. A charge-sheet was filed on 28 September 2006, and charges under Section 307 IPC were framed on 15 November 2011.
Sessions Trial No. 301 of 2011 was tried before the Additional Sessions Judge, Court No. 2, Lakhimpur Kheri. The trial court convicted all three appellants by its judgment and order dated 5 June 2026, holding that their intention to kill was established from the multiple pellet injuries — four on the face and seven on the chest — and that the absence of a good hospital nearby meant the injured could have died. It sentenced each of them to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 20,000.
Separate criminal appeals were filed: Criminal Appeal No. 1792 of 2026 by Aarif Ali, and Criminal Appeal No. 2048 of 2026 by Mohd Kamil and Abdul Rauf. Because both challenged the same judgment and involved identical questions, they were heard together on 12 August 2026 and decided by a common judgment.
The Physical Impossibilities in the Prosecution's Account
The central pillar of Justice Vidyarthi's reasoning was that the physical evidence produced by the prosecution itself contradicted the prosecution's narrative at multiple points.
The investigating officer's site plan (Exhibit A-3) showed that the appellants had allegedly fired from inside a room in their house while the complainant was standing inside the compound of his own house, at a distance of 22 steps. The site plan, however, showed no door or window in the wall of the room through which the gunshots were said to have been fired. Nor was there any opening in the boundary of the complainant's house through which a gunshot could have entered. The complainant himself, as PW-1, confirmed that the appellants' pakka house was surrounded by 10-foot boundary walls on all sides, with ingress and egress only from the East. The court held that it appeared impossible for all three appellants to have fired at the complainant from inside a room with no opening, through a house encircled by 10-foot walls. The prosecution never challenged the correctness of the site plan during the trial.
The blackening question was equally decisive. The medico-legal examination report and the doctor examined as PW-4 both confirmed that an area of blackening was present around the injuries. The court noted that blackening is caused only when a gunshot is fired from close range, and it cannot be caused by a country-made pistol fired from a distance of 22 to 25 steps, which translates to approximately 55 to 60 feet. This made it highly doubtful that the complainant received his injuries in the manner described.
Contradictions in Prosecution Witnesses' Accounts
Beyond the physical impossibilities, the court found serious contradictions between the two main prosecution witnesses.
PW-1, the injured complainant, stated that gunshots were fired continuously, though he could not estimate their number. PW-5, the complainant's brother Tauqir, stated that he heard only one shot — an account consistent with injuries attributable to a single gunshot. PW-1 stated that the complaint was written out by an unknown person on his dictation while he was being carried to the police station on the way. PW-5, however, stated that the FIR was dictated by the Sub-Inspector to a police constable at the police station, and that the complainant had fallen unconscious immediately after the incident at the spot. PW-1 himself gave a shifting account of his consciousness: he first said he was speaking on the way, then said he was unconscious, and then said he had partial consciousness. The court found these contradictions material to the question of when and by whom the FIR was reliably narrated.
The genesis of the dispute also proved unstable. The FIR described a quarrel between children of the two families. But PW-1 admitted in cross-examination that there were no children in Rauf's family, and neither PW-1 nor PW-5 named any child present at the spot. The investigating officer (PW-3) stated that the complainant had told him that the real trigger was a buffalo belonging to Rauf damaging the complainant's tatiya — a bamboo boundary wall. Yet PW-5 stated that the appellants did not have any cattle at all. These shifting and mutually contradictory explanations for the genesis of the incident undermined the foundation of the prosecution story.
Unexplained Injuries on the Accused and the Trial Court's Error on Section 313 CrPC
Appellant Aarif had suffered four injuries during the same incident — two scalp-deep lacerated wounds, a bluish contusion on the right side of the back, and a traumatic swelling on the right hand — all about one day old and consistent with being caused around 7:30 p.m. on 9 September 2006, according to the doctor examined as DW-1. The investigating officer (PW-3) confirmed that Aarif's medical examination was conducted at the District Hospital, Lakhimpur Kheri, and that Aarif had sustained injuries in the incident. The prosecution offered no explanation for these injuries.
The trial court had rejected DW-1's testimony on this point because no FIR had been lodged from the appellants' side and the appellants had not mentioned it in their statements recorded under Section 313 CrPC. Justice Vidyarthi held this reasoning to be legally erroneous. The duty to put questions to the accused under Section 313 CrPC lies with the court, not the accused. If no question was put to the accused on a particular aspect, no adverse inference can be drawn against him. The trial court's rejection of DW-1's testimony on this basis was therefore unsustainable.
The court observed that the absence of any explanation for Aarif's four injuries reinforced the defence's submission that persons from the complainant's side were the actual aggressors. If the complainant fainted on receiving the firearm injury, the lathi blows to Aarif could not have been administered after that point — which lent credibility to the sequence put forward by the defence: that the complainant's side attacked Aarif first, he fled into the house, and any firing occurred in that context.
The Trial Court's Finding on Lack of Hospital: Perverse
One of the trial court's key reasons for upholding the Section 307 IPC conviction was that no good hospital was situated near the place of the incident where the bullet could be removed from the body of the injured, and therefore there was every possibility of the injured dying due to the gunshot injury.
Justice Vidyarthi found this finding perverse. There was no evidence placed before the trial court to support it. The learned Additional Government Advocate himself had stated in written submissions that medical treatment was administered to the injured immediately following registration of the FIR. The court was also critical of the AGA's written submissions mentioning that the complainant had died on 10 January 2026, nearly two decades after the incident. The court found this statement irrelevant and made expressly to prejudice the court, and declined to consider it.
Legal Framework on Section 307 IPC and Burden of Proof
The AGA relied on a line of Supreme Court decisions establishing that the testimony of an injured witness carries special weight, that non-recovery of the weapon is not a sine qua non for conviction, and that minor contradictions cannot be used to discard testimony wholesale. The court acknowledged these propositions but found that the infirmities in this case went well beyond minor contradictions — they touched the physical plausibility of the prosecution account itself.
The court placed reliance on Vaibhav v. State of Maharashtra : (2025) 8 SCC 315, in which the Supreme Court held that where the prosecution's version suffers from inherent inconsistencies and doubts, the accused's inability to fully explain certain circumstances cannot be used to relieve the prosecution of its primary burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
The appellants' counsel had cited a Division Bench judgment of the same court in Bhanu Pratap Singh Yadav v. State of U.P. : 2021 (1) ALJ 738, which held that where injuries were superficial and simple, the depth of wounds not recorded, no vital organ damaged, and intention to kill not established, the ingredients of Section 307 IPC were not attracted. Justice Vidyarthi engaged with this precedent but also quoted the Supreme Court in Parasa Raja Manikyala Rao v. State of A.P. : (2003) 12 SCC 306, that each criminal case must be decided on its own facts and a broad resemblance to another case is not decisive. He proceeded on the specific evidence before him rather than mechanically applying either line of cases.
The doctor (PW-4) had not recorded the depth of the injuries and had not stated that any injury was fatal or dangerous to life. The radiologist (PW-2) confirmed that no vital organ was damaged and the abdominal X-ray was normal. The court found that the medical evidence, read alongside the physical contradictions in the prosecution's case, did not establish the intention or knowledge required under Section 307 IPC.
The Juvenility Argument Left Undecided
Counsel for the appellants also submitted that Mohd. Kamil alias Guddu, appellant No. 1 in Criminal Appeal No. 2048 of 2026, was a juvenile at the time of the incident and had been wrongly tried, convicted, and sentenced as an adult. He also advanced submissions for compensation to be awarded on that ground.
Justice Vidyarthi declined to go into the juvenility question for two reasons. First, since all the appellants had been acquitted and nothing remained to be decided, the question was academic unless the State chose to challenge the acquittal before the Supreme Court. Second, the juvenility issue had not been properly raised and pressed at any earlier stage of the proceedings, and the appellants themselves bore some responsibility for that failure — the State alone could not be held entirely responsible so as to attract a compensation liability for trying a juvenile as an adult.
Outcome
Both Criminal Appeal No. 2048 of 2026 and Criminal Appeal No. 1792 of 2026 were allowed. The judgment and order dated 5 June 2026 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Court No. 2, Lakhimpur Kheri, in Sessions Trial No. 301 of 2011 arising out of Case Crime No. 388 of 2006 under Section 307 IPC, Police Station Phulbehad, District Kheri, was set aside. All three appellants were acquitted of the charge under Section 307 IPC.
The appellants, who were in custody, were directed to be released on furnishing personal bonds and two sureties in terms of Section 437-A CrPC, ensuring their appearance before the Supreme Court if the State files an appeal and notice is issued. The bonds were directed to remain in force for six months from the date of the order.