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Looking into nature of injuries, the SC bench said the deceased could not have survived so as to make any declaration and there is no specific material piece of evidence to establish that the deceased was alive or in a position to speak when his brother and mother reached the spot, so in these circumstances, the dying declaration cannot be ex facie accepted to be correct unless it stands corroborated by any other cogent evidence, and there was no material to corroborate the said dying declaration
The Supreme Court has on January 5, 2024 said appellate courts should be slow in interfering with the conviction but where the evidence on record indicated the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt and that a plausible view, different from the one expressed by the courts below can be taken, the appellate court should not shy away in giving the benefit of doubt to the accused.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal acquitted Jitendra Kumar Mishra alias Jittu, Gledwin alias Banti Isai and Ajay alias Ajayya granting them benefit of doubt related to murder Pappu alias Rajendra Yadav.
In the incident of June 8, 2007, it was alleged the accused persons had assaulted the deceased with sickle, knife and other weapons when he was coming out of Machchu Hotel in Jabalpur. On being informed, Rajkumar Yadav, brother of deceased and his mother rushed him to hospital where he was declared brought dead.
Going through the facts of the case, the bench noted the injuries sustained were of very grave nature as the left lung of the deceased was punctured causing respiratory failure, the heart injury sustained by by him resulted into excessive bleeding and in that situation the person would have died between 5 to 10 minutes of receiving such injuries or within a maximum of 15 minutes. The postmortem report revealed that the deceased had died due to haemorrhage shock and cardio-respiratory failure. Apart from these injuries, the deceased had suffered other serious injuries, not only on neck, chest and abdomen but also on the lower limbs from where bleeding had taken place. There was also an injury on the skull.
The prosecution relied upon oral dying declaration of the deceased before his brother and mother. The friends of the deceased who were with him at the time of assault did not support the prosecution case.
Looking into nature of injuries, the bench said the deceased could not have survived so as to make any declaration.
"There is no specific material piece of evidence to establish that the deceased was alive or in a position to speak when his brother and mother reached the spot. In these circumstances, the dying declaration cannot be ex facie accepted to be correct unless it stands corroborated by any other cogent evidence. There is no material to corroborate the said dying declaration," the bench said.
The court also disbelieved a chance witness, Rahul Yadav, who happened to be a relative of the deceased. "He is not a free and independent witness. He is likely to be an interested witness. He is a person with criminal background...his testimony has to be considered with great circumspection and cannot be relied upon blindly without taking into account available corroborative evidence on record, if any," the bench said.
The court said the courts below ought to have extended the benefit of doubt to the appellants.
"We are conscious of the fact that the appellate court should be slow in interfering with the conviction recorded by the courts below but where the evidence on record indicates the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt and that a plausible view, different from the one expressed by the courts below can be taken, the appellate court should not shy away in giving the benefit of doubt to the accused persons," the bench said.
Cause Title: Jitendra Kumar Mishra alias Jittu Vs The State of Madhya Pradesh
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