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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on April 16, 2024 upheld the conviction and life term sentence imposed upon a man for a murder in November 1985 in Madhya Pradesh's Bhind district.

The court found that the contradictions sought to be highlighted were far too trivial so as to discard the entire prosecution case based on reliable and trustworthy set of eye witnesses whose evidence was corroborated by the evidence of the medical jurist and other attending circumstances.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta confirmed the high court's judgment of 2007 as well as the trial court's decision of 1998, holding appellant Ramvir alias Saket Singh guilty of the murder of Kalyan Singh.

The appellant was tried for the murders of Kaptan Singh and Kalyan Singh which took place in two separate incidents and for the attempted murder of Indal Singh, a prosecution witness in the incident in which Kaptan Singh was killed. Both the incidents took place on November 10, 1985.

The trial court acquitted him in the case of murder of Kalyan Singh. However, placing reliance on the testimony of Raj Kumari, Indal Singh, injured eyewitness and Ramraj Singh, the trial court proceeded to convict and sentence the appellant for the commission of murder of Kaptan Singh and attempted murder of Indal Singh.

The appellant contended that Raj Kumari and Indal Singh were interested partisan witnesses and were closely related to the deceased Kaptan Singh and hence, their evidence could not be accepted in absence of corroboration. 

From the complainant side, six persons were convicted of the offence under Section 396 of the IPC by the trial court but the high court acquitted all of them including two prosecution witnesses Indal Singh and Ramraj Singh in the instant case.

"The contention advanced by counsel for the appellant that these witnesses are partisan witnesses as being closely related to the deceased and hence their evidence should be discarded, does not for a moment, convince us because in a case involving gruesome broad daylight double murder by repeated gun firing, it is unlikely that any of the persons from the neighbourhood, would have the courage to step forward as witnesses," the bench said.

The court also pointed out that even otherwise, Indal Singh himself received injuries in the same incident. "He has truthfully accepted his role in the incident stating that he fired the gun shots which hit two assailants namely, Chutallu alias Ram Mohan and Shiv Singh leading to their death. Hence, clearly the prosecution has given thorough explanation for the injuries received by persons from the side of the accused," the bench said.

The court also pointed out that the high court, in the cross-case, noted members of the accused party of the present case were the aggressors and that the injuries which resulted into the death of Chutallu alias Ram Mohan and Shiv Singh were caused by Indal Singh and his companions in exercise of their right of private defence. 

"The said finding has not been challenged and has thus attained finality," it said.

The court, therefore, concluded that the high court's judgment did not suffer any infirmity, warranting any interference. It dismissed the appeal for lacking merit.