The eyewitness delayed reporting it and would not let the police lift the body, and 637 days later the State sought leave to appeal

Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja condoned the delay and then refused leave, holding no prima facie case was made out against men acquitted of murder in 2021.

An Additional Sessions Judge at Karkardooma Courts acquitted two men of murder on 18 September 2021. The State applied under Section 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for leave to appeal, 637 days late. On 14 October 2026 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court condoned the delay for the reasons stated in the application, and then declined leave.

What the prosecution witness said happened

The account the Bench examined comes mostly from two witnesses who were together that evening, and the difficulty is that the second one did not support the first.

On the second witness's version, the deceased was under the influence of liquor and lying on the ground. He poured water on his body and his face, and the deceased did not react. The first witness then suggested that since the man was drunk they should leave him there, and that once he came back to his senses he would make his own way home. Leaving him lying on the ground, the two of them walked on and reached the first witness's house.

After some time they heard that someone was lying injured. When they returned to the spot where they had left him, they saw him lying unconscious. The first witness then took the second witness's mobile phone and called the police on 100. When the police arrived, the first witness and his father did not allow them to lift the deceased from that place.

A hostile witness who held his line

The second witness was declared hostile and cross-examined by the Additional Public Prosecutor. He nonetheless maintained that he had not seen the respondents hitting the deceased. On his statement under Section 161 of the Code, he said the police had obtained his signatures on blank papers.

The Court found that at least two parts of his account are supported by circumstantial evidence, and both are small details that happen to be checkable. The first witness also maintains that there was ice next to where the deceased was lying on the road, and admits that the deceased had bought that ice from a shop nearby. And the first witness admits that the phone from which the call to the police was made was in the second witness's name, though he says he had bought it from him a month before the incident.

Those are the kind of corroborations that matter in a case where one witness has turned: they do not prove anybody innocent, but they show that the hostile witness is describing the same evening rather than inventing one.

Why the eyewitness was not believed

From all of that, the Bench held, one cannot reach the conclusion that the first witness is a wholly reliable or even partly reliable witness. His presence at the spot and his having witnessed the incident are doubtful, especially given the delay in reporting the incident to the police and his refusal to take the deceased to hospital for treatment in the PCR van.

That second point deserves emphasis because it is conduct rather than testimony. A man who says he saw his companion being beaten, and who then declines the transport that arrives to take the injured man to hospital, is behaving in a way the prosecution case does not explain.

The trial court had also laid emphasis on two gaps in the prosecution's own evidence, and the High Court endorsed them: the non-examination of the boy who had allegedly informed the first witness that an assault was taking place, and the non-examination of the other public witnesses whose presence at the spot the prosecution cannot deny.

The order

Given those factors, the Bench did not find a prima facie case being made out by the State against the respondents, and was of the view that the trial court's judgment does not warrant any interference. The petition was dismissed.

A copy of the judgment was directed to be sent to the trial court and to the Jail Superintendent concerned for information and record. The matter had been reserved on 5 August 2026.

Mr Aman Usman, Additional Public Prosecutor, with Mr Manvendra Yadav appeared for the State along with the investigating officers; Mr Abdul Salam and Ms Shruti Jain for the respondents.

The acquittal therefore stands on the trial court's assessment of a single eyewitness whose account the High Court has now also declined to accept, in a case where the prosecution did not call the other people who were admittedly at the spot.

Leave having been refused, the acquittal of September 2021 is final.

Both respondents remain acquitted of the charge under Sections 302 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code on which they were tried.