In a significant ruling highlighting the challenges of hostile witnesses in criminal trials, the Supreme Court on Friday acquitted six murder accused “with a heavy heart” after the majority of witnesses, including the victim’s son, retracted their earlier statements.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K Vinod Chandran overturned the Karnataka High Court’s decision dated September 27, 2023, which had convicted the six men despite the trial court’s earlier acquittal.
“With a heavy heart for the unsolved crime, but with absolutely no misgivings on the issue of lack of evidence against the accused arrayed, we acquit the accused, reversing the judgment of the High Court and restoring that of the trial court,” Justice Chandran wrote in the 49-page judgment delivered on behalf of the bench.
The case was marred by mass retractions, with 71 out of 87 witnesses, including several key eyewitnesses, turning hostile during the trial. This left the prosecution reliant solely on police and official testimony. The court expressed deep concern over the collapse of the case due to unreliable witness accounts.
“Witnesses mount the box to disown prior statements, deny recoveries made, feign ignorance of aggravating circumstances spoken of during investigation, and eyewitnesses turn blind,” the bench noted.
The ruling cited the troubling fact that even a young boy, the son of the deceased and a crucial eyewitness, ultimately failed to identify the attackers who hacked his father to death.
The court also criticized the investigation, describing it as “overzealous” and conducted in “total ignorance of basic tenets of criminal law,” often reducing “prosecution to a mockery.”
