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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on November 6 highlighted the concept of bolstered principle of innocence, and said that a court of appeal can overturn the acquittal of the accused by a trial court only due to very compelling reasons.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Sanjay Karol set aside the Karnataka High Court's 2010 order, which held one Manjunath and five others guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 II of the IPC and awarded each of them four years jail term with Rs 5,000 fine.

The bench said that it had been held time and again that an acquittal will only be overturned in the presence of "very compelling reasons". However, the judgment by the high court was based on perfunctory reasons and not in accordance with the law, court said.

A Fast Track Court in Kolar had acquitted all 29 accused rejecting the dying declaration, circumstantial as well as ocular evidences.

"Having allowed the appeals, we are constrained to observe that the Criminal Appeal u/s 378 Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 the High Court has not appreciated the severity of the allegations involved to the full extent. That a Court of Appeal should be circumspect in overturning its judgment of acquittal, is not a principle that requires reiteration," the bench said.

"Further, right from the Privy Council onwards, it is been held that the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is bolstered if the trial court hands down an acquittal. We find the High Court not to have observed the said principles in deciding the appeals. Quite opposite thereto, perfunctory reasons stand recorded to restore the convictions of the Appellants herein. The observations of the trial court along with the principle of a bolstered principle of innocence, were summarily cast aside," the bench added.

After going through the case details, the bench concluded that none of the three eyewitnesses, cited by the prosecution as referred to by the trial court had succeeded in attributing a particular role to any of the accused persons and equally so, to the seven accused, whose acquittals had been overturned by the High Court.

"The circumstantial evidence present on record does not point to the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused persons", it pointed out.

Further, the bench said that the dying declaration, although undoubtedly a substantive piece of evidence upon which reliance could be placed, in the present facts was rendered nugatory as the person who took down such declaration was not examined, nor did the police officer (PW19) endorse the said document with details of who took down the declaration. It was also not clear as to in front of which of the relatives of deceased was the same taken down.

"In our considered view, the view taken by the Trial Court was a possible view and there being no error in correct and complete appreciation of evidence as also application of law; the High Court, without assigning any cogent reasons ought not to have interfered with such findings," the bench said.

According to the prosecution, on August 6, 1997, the deceased namely Byregowda and his brothers, T V Narayanaswamy, T V Gopalreddy, T V Rajanna and Marappa had gone to the fields to work when, allegedly, all the accused armed with weapons such as clubs, iron rods and choppers came and threatened them. 

All others managed to escape but while the deceased, was attempting to do so, he was grievously assaulted by iron rod and a steel edged weapon (chopper). Immediate medical treatment was administered to the deceased and statement was recorded by a police inspector and the FIR was lodged on August 8, 1997.

Case Title: Manjunath & Ors Vs State of Karnataka