The Supreme Court on Friday acquitted four men who had been convicted in a 35-year-old murder case arising out of alleged political rivalry, after finding major inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta set aside their conviction, observing that the testimony of the two “so-called eyewitnesses” was riddled with contradictions and inherent improbabilities. The court also exercised its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to extend the benefit of acquittal to three co-accused who had not approached the Supreme Court.
The case dates back to September 1990, when an FIR was lodged in Indore alleging that ten persons were demolishing a temporary hutment. When the informant’s son tried to intervene, he was allegedly assaulted. The victim succumbed to his injuries while receiving treatment at a hospital in Indore.
The prosecution claimed that the attack stemmed from political rivalry between the accused and the complainant party.
In October 1999, the trial court convicted four accused and acquitted six others. The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld their conviction and life sentence in April 2009. One of the accused later appealed to the Supreme Court.
The bench found the prosecution’s narrative fundamentally unreliable.
“In the present case, the prosecution has failed to establish the genesis of the occurrence and the place of incident with any degree of certainty,” the court said.
The FIR mentioned the demolition of a hut near the residence of one prosecution witness. Another witness, however, shifted the crime scene near his own house and denied any demolition. A third claimed the assault happened in a field.
“They do not acknowledge each other’s presence at the crime scene. Such conflicting versions cannot co-exist within a credible narrative,” the bench observed.
The judges held that “suppression of the genesis of occurrence and the shifting of the place of incident demolish the very substratum of the prosecution case.”
The court concluded that the evidence was too unreliable to sustain the conviction.
“In this background, we are of the firm opinion that it would not be safe to uphold the conviction of the accused-appellant and the three co-accused namely Govardhan, Raja Ram and Bhima, as the testimony of the so-called eyewitnesses… is full of contradictions and inherent improbabilities,” the bench said.
It ruled that all four convicts were entitled to the benefit of doubt.
“Since the entire case of the prosecution has fallen, all the four convicts were entitled to be extended the benefit of doubt. Hence, we are inclined to extend the benefit of this judgment, in exercise of our powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, 1950, to the three co-accused namely, Govardhan, Raja Ram, and Bhima, who have not challenged their conviction before this court,” the judgment stated.
The Supreme Court set aside the judgments of both the trial court and the Madhya Pradesh High Court, directing the release of the four from custody, if not required in any other case.
