Supreme Court Restores Trial Court Acquittal in 1988 Murder Case, Rejects High Court Remand
A bench of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran re-appreciated evidence from scratch and found no basis to disturb a three-decade-old acquittal.
The Supreme Court has set aside a Bombay High Court order remanding a murder case back to the Sessions Court for fresh consideration and has instead restored the acquittal recorded by the Trial Court. The incident at the centre of the case dates to 14 February 1988, making the accused subject to legal proceedings for nearly four decades. After re-appreciating the entire evidence on the record, a division bench of Justices J. B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran found that the eyewitness testimonies were untrustworthy, the dying declarations were not credible, and the recovery of a weapon under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 was insufficient, by itself, to establish guilt. The Court allowed the criminal appeal and directed that the accused be released forthwith if they remain in custody.
How a Brother's Revision Reached the Supreme Court
The deceased was named Qavi. His brother filed a Criminal Revision Application before the Bombay High Court challenging a judgment of acquittal passed by the Trial Court against several accused charged with murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
The High Court once overturned the acquittal but had done so without hearing the accused. An SLP was filed before the Supreme Court, which remitted the matter back to the High Court, drawing attention to Section 401(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, which bars the exercise of revisional power to the prejudice of the accused without affording an opportunity of hearing — an opportunity that had evidently not been given because the advocate engaged had since expired.
On remand, the High Court again did not decide the revision on merits. It passed the impugned order remitting the matter to the Additional Sessions Judge to reconsider afresh the testimony of the eyewitnesses, the recoveries made under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Chemical Analysis Report. The Trial Court's finding refusing to place any credence on the dying declarations was upheld by the High Court, and it did not disturb that conclusion. It was this second remand order that the accused challenged before the Supreme Court.
The Threshold Question: Revision or Appeal for a Victim?
The Supreme Court itself had framed a preliminary question by order dated 17 December 2024: in a case of acquittal under Section 302 IPC, should the revision petition be placed before a Division Bench or a Single Judge? The impugned High Court order had been passed by a Single Judge.
The Court, after hearing Ms. Mukta Gupta, Senior Advocate, appointed as amicus curiae and assisted by Mr. Anuj Agarwala, learned AOR, and Mr. Amol Nirmalkumar Suryawanshi, learned AOR for the appellants, held that this question had become academic on the facts.
The reasoning is instructive. When the criminal revision was filed in 1990, there was no provision for a victim to appeal against an acquittal. Section 378 of the Cr.PC permitted only the State to appeal, and only after obtaining leave of the High Court. The right of a victim to appeal was introduced only by Act 5 of 2009, which inserted a proviso to Section 372 of the Cr.PC. The Court noted its earlier decision in Mallikarjun Kodagali v. State of Karnataka, (2019) 2 SCC 752, which held that a victim exercising the right under the proviso to Section 372 need not seek special leave to appeal, unlike under Section 378(2) and (4). It also noted Joseph Stephen v. Santhanasamy, (2022) 13 SCC 115, which, relying on Mallikarjun Kodagali, held that no revision can be entertained at the instance of a victim against an order of acquittal where the appellate remedy is available after the 2009 amendment.
The combined effect of those precedents is that, after 2009, a victim must prefer an appeal rather than a revision against an acquittal. However, when this revision was filed in 1990, no such appellate remedy existed for the victim. The question of which bench should have heard the matter was therefore academic: the proper course was to examine the matter on merits, which is precisely what the Supreme Court then did.
The Court also clarified the scope of Section 401 of the Cr.PC in this context. Sub-section (4) bars revision at the instance of a party who has an appellate remedy but has not availed of it. Sub-section (1), however, permits the High Court to exercise revisional powers even suo motu. Sub-section (5) goes further — it empowers the High Court, where a party has erroneously taken the revision route believing no appeal lies, to convert the revision petition into an appeal and deal with it accordingly. The Court observed that such power was available in the present case both at the date of filing in 1990 and at the time of disposal in 2022, though it noted that if the applicable High Court rules vest appellate jurisdiction in a Division Bench, the matter must go before that bench, which would also have to be satisfied about the erroneous belief under which the revision was filed.
Re-appreciation of Evidence: Eyewitnesses, Dying Declarations, and Recovery
Given the age of the case and the prolonged legal proceedings, the Supreme Court decided to re-appreciate the evidence rather than remit the matter once more. The prosecution had sought to prove motive, the formation of an unlawful assembly, the assault on the deceased, the dying declarations, the nature of injuries, and the Section 27 recovery of the weapon and clothes.
Motive. PW4 testified that the deceased had refused to whitewash the house of A3 and that there was an altercation between A4 and the deceased. But PW4's own cross-examination disclosed that the deceased was not a whitewasher at all but sold apparels on an instalment scheme. The motive as put forward by the prosecution did not hold.
Eyewitnesses. PW3, PW4, and PW8 were characterised by the Trial Court as chance witnesses. PW4 consistently referred to a companion named Ajaz who was present throughout both the earlier altercation and the murder itself, but Ajaz was never examined before the Court. PW3 admitted in cross-examination that his Section 161 statement was recorded two to three days after the inquest report, despite the fact that the Investigating Officer, PW12, had himself prepared the inquest report. No explanation was offered by the prosecution when PW12 was examined. PW3 also claimed to have left the injured on the road and gone to inform relatives, while the police station was only five to seven minutes away. PW10, the brother, however, said he came to the spot after being informed by some children — not by PW3. PW8 walked away from the scene to his house and later told PW5 about the assault when he visited the hospital. He was close to PW4 yet claimed to be a passive bystander. None of the three witnesses took the injured to hospital or reported to the nearby police station.
Dying declarations. PW10 spoke of a dying declaration made in the auto-rickshaw on the way to hospital. PW5, the father, spoke of a dying declaration made at the hospital about twenty minutes after the injured arrived. PW11, the surgeon, admitted in cross-examination that the patient was conscious when he saw him at 11.10 pm, but his statement was that the patient was accompanied by his father who recited the history — inconsistent with PW1's testimony that the injured arrived alone, brought by the auto-rickshaw driver, and was admitted at 9.30 pm. PW1 stated in cross-examination that the injured was brought unconscious and never regained consciousness, and that evidence was not challenged in re-examination by the prosecution. The post-mortem report recorded five and six penetrating injuries to the left lung and heart, leading to haemorrhagic shock. Given those injuries, the Court found it highly improbable that the injured was conscious and capable of naming five attackers. The High Court had itself declined to believe the dying declarations. The Supreme Court agreed.
Scene of occurrence. The Investigating Officer prepared a scene mahazar but made no seizures from the spot. No blood was recovered from the place where the injured allegedly fell, even though the nature of the injuries meant he would have been profusely bleeding there.
Section 27 recovery. The weapon recovered through A4 bore human blood on chemical analysis. But the prosecution did not confront the eyewitnesses with the weapon, and the description given by witnesses in court did not match its physical appearance. The Court held that a Section 27 recovery alone cannot lead to conviction; without a complete chain of circumstances pointing to guilt as the only hypothesis, it fails to implicate the accused.
The Principle Against Disturbing Acquittals
The Court articulated the governing standard plainly: the principle of not overturning an acquittal where the view taken is plausible — even if another view is possible — is not a matter of mere caution. It is a tenet of criminal jurisprudence designed to protect the accused from prejudice and to ensure that the benefit of reasonable doubt accrues to the accused. An acquittal handed down by a Trial Court fortifies the presumption of innocence. The Court acknowledged the anguish of the brother who had pursued the case for over three decades, but held that courts cannot convict on mere assumptions when the evidence fails to satisfy the judicial mind of guilt.
Having re-appreciated the evidence, the Court found that this was not a fit case even for converting the revision petition into an appeal, let alone for remanding the matter further. The impugned High Court order directing yet another remand to the Sessions Court was set aside.
Order
The Supreme Court allowed the criminal appeal. The order of the Trial Court acquitting the accused was restored. The accused were directed to be released forthwith if held in custody and not wanted in any other case. Those already on bail were directed to have their bail bonds cancelled. Pending applications, if any, were disposed of.