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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has on January 5, 2024 acquitted a man in the murder case after finding various discrepancies and improbabilities in the prosecution case, making it to hold that the charge has not established beyond reasonable doubt. 

"There is a yawning gap between the charge against the appellant and the evidence that the prosecution has adduced. The circumstances do not establish the guilt of the appellant at all. While the principle applicable to circumstantial evidence requires that the facts must be consistent with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, in the present case the evidence adduced gives rise to doubts, improbabilities and inconsistencies," a bench of Justices B R Gavai and P S Narasimha said.

The court allowed an appeal filed by Pradeep Kumar against the Punjab and Haryana High Court's judgment which had dismissed his appeal and confirmed the trial court's order to convict him and award a sentence of life term in the case related to murder of Shamsher Singh at Kaithal in Haryana in April, 2004.

In the case, the appellant along with another accused Sunil Gupta faced the trial and two other accused were found as juvenile and tried separately.

There was no eyewitness and that the case was based only on circumstantial evidence.

The court went through the statements of prosecution witnesses including ex Sarpanch of village Geong before whom, the four accused had allegedly made extra judicial confession of killing the deceased as accused Sunil borrowed some money from him and committed the murder to avoid repayment.

The High Court, however, has not relied upon statement of this witness and found other evidence sufficient.

The apex court, on its part, independently examined the evidence of ex Sarpanch and come to the conclusion that this witness is "not trustworthy" and concluded the extra judicial confession on is "false and unbelievable". 

It also rejected testimony of two other chance witnesses. It found one as "completely unreliable" as "there are too many coincidences in his version and his story is improbable in the context of the facts and circumstances of the case".

The court also noted another chance witness' statement as one that does not inspire confidence at all.

Besides, the bench pointed out the weapons recovered by the IO and the ones seen by the witnesses are only sticks. However, the deceased has suffered an incise wound caused by a sharp-edged weapon. The prosecution has not recovered any sharp-edged weapon. In fact, there is no mention about a sharp-edged weapon at all, it said.

The court also noted there was no independent witness to the recovery of blood stained clothes, which FSL report mentioned as of 'terikot pants' while recovery was of 'jeans pants'.

 

Cause Title: Pradeep Kumar Vs State of Haryana