Case details

Court: Supreme Court of India
Decided: 24 October 2019
Bench: Deepak Gupta
Citations: 2019 INSC 1190[2019] 14 S.C.R. 1047
Type: Judgment (Appeal(s) allowed)

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Citation: [2019] 14 S.C.R. 1047 (search it on the Supreme Court's e-SCR portal)

Supreme Court of India

IMRAT SINGH & ORS. versus STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH on 24 October 2019

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IMRAT SINGH & ORS.

STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

(Criminal Appeal No.480 of 2009)

OCTOBER 24, 2019

[DEEPAK GUPTA AND ANIRUDDHA BOSE, JJ.]

Penal Code, 1860:

ss.148 and 302 r/w. s.149 – Conviction under – By courtsbelow – Relying mainly on two eye-witnesses viz. PW10 and PW11– Appeal to Supreme Court – Held: There are many materialcontractions in the evidence of PW10 and PW11 – There is absenceof examination of many important witnesses – There is a possibilityof concoction of prosecution story – Investigation also does notseem to be fair – Therefore, conviction by courts below based onthe testimony of the witnesses was not correct – Accused are liableto be acquitted.

Allowing the appeal, the Court

HELD: 1. There are many material contradictions in thestatements of the two witnesses i.e. PW10 and PW11. A doubt iscast that these witnesses are prepared witnesses who have comeout with a parrot like version as far as the incident itself isconcerned but when it comes to the attending circumstances,their evidence falls apart and does not withstand the scrutiny ofcross-examination. These witnesses have been improving theirstatements with the passage of time. There is also contradictionin the statement of these two witnesses as to who informed thevillagers about the death of the deceased. [Paras 5, 10] [1050-F;1052-G]

2. The manner in which the site plan was prepared clearlyindicates that the investigation was not a fair investigation.[Para 12] [1053-D]

3. The versions of PW15 and that of PW10 are totallydifferent. This casts a serious doubt on the prosecution story. 1047

1047

AAnother factor is that a number of very important witnesses whoshould have been examined have not been examined. [Paras 16,17] [1054-G; 1055-A]

4. The FIR has been recorded admittedly after visitingthe spot by the police and, therefore, there is a possibility thatBthe story could have been concocted after seeing the site andconferring with all the villagers. It has come on record that thedeceased was not a very popular man. He had a lot of enemies. Ithas also come in evidence that almost all the witnesses havesome criminal antecedents and some cases are pending againstCthem. It may be true that there was enmity between the two sides.Enmity, as is often said is a double edged sword. It can be themotive but it can also be a reason to falsely implicate the otherside. In the present case, keeping in view the variouscontradictions and the fact that in view of the contradictions it isdifficult to rely upon the statements of PW-10 and PW-11 as wellDas PW-6 and PW-7, a doubt has been cast and the benefit of doubthas to be given to the accused. The High Court and the TrialCourt did not take into consideration these contradictions of thewitnesses and relied upon the witnesses especially PW-10 andPW-11 without referring to the attending circumstances.E[Paras 18 and 19] [1055-C-F]

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal AppealNo.480 of 2009.

From the Judgment and Order dated 24.10.2008 of the HighFCourt of Judicature of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur, Bench at Gwalior inCriminal Appeal No. 132 of 1995

Shikhil Suri, Adv. (A.C.)

Ms. June Chaudhary, Sr. Adv., Mohd. Parvez Dabas, Uzmi JameelGHusain, Ms. Shilpa Saini, Shakil Ahmed Syed, Advs. for theAppellants.

Rahul Kaushik, Ms. Bhuvneshwari Pathak, Ms. Shilpi SatyapriyaSatyam, Advs. for the Respondent.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by DEEPAK GUTPA, J. (ORAL)

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1. This appeal by the convicted accused is directed against thejudgment dated 24.10.2008 passed by the Division Bench of the HighCourt of Madhya Pradesh, whereby the High Court upheld the judgmentof the Sessions Judge, Datia dated 30.03.1995 convicting the appellantsof having committing offences punishable under Sections 148 and 302read with 149 of the Indian Penal Code. Appellants were sentenced toundergo life imprisonment for the offence of murder and two yearsrigorous imprisonment for the offence punishable under Section 148 IPC.They were also directed to pay fine of Rs.25,000/- and in default ofpayment of fine further three years rigorous imprisonment.

2. Shortly stated the prosecution case, as reflected in the FIR isthat on 25.05.1994 at about 2 pm., Lakhan Singh (PW-10) and RamSingh (PW-11), who were coming from village Baron Kalan to villageKotra, saw the accused persons beating Gajraj Singh with lathis at aplace called Brar Khora. These two witnesses asked why the accusedwere beating Gajraj Singh and then they were threatened by the accused.Being scared, they ran away from the spot to save their own lives. Thenthey reached village Kotra and thereafter went to the police station atabout 5 pm. to lodge the FIR. We may also add that though this is notpart of the FIR, during the course of investigation it has transpired thatSomati (PW-6) and Raghubir (PW-7) last saw Gajraj Singh with accusedImrat Singh. Both, the Trial Court and the High Court, have acceptedthe testimony of Lakhan Singh (PW-10) and Ram Singh (PW-11) to betrue and accepting their evidence to be true and treating these twowitnesses as eye-witnesses have convicted all the accused as aforesaid.Hence, the present appeal.

3. The main contention raised before us by Ms. June Chaudhary,learned senior counsel, as well as Mr. Shikhil Suri, whom we had askedto assist us as amicus, is that the testimonies of Lakhan Singh (PW-10)and Ram Singh (PW-11) are totally untrustworthy and cannot be reliedupon. They submit that if the testimonies are read as a whole along withthe other attending circumstances, to which we shall advert later, noreliance can be placed on these two witnesses and, therefore, theconviction is liable to be set aside. Even with regard to Somati (PW-6)

Aand Raghubir (PW-7), it is submitted that their testimonies arecontradictory and cannot be relied upon and at best the testimonies willgo against Imrat Singh and not against any of the other accused.

4. We need not refer to the FIR in detail. We will straight awaydeal with the statement of the two star witnesses of the prosecutionBLakhan Singh (PW-10) and Ram Singh (PW-11). They are both residentsof Village Kotra. Their version is that they had gone to village BaronKalan since they both had worked there and Lakhan Singh (PW-10) hadto meet a potter Bhagwan Dass to get some work done. According tothem, when they were returning from Baron Kalan and had reachednear Brar Khora they saw all the five accused Imrat Singh, HetamCSingh, Raghubir Singh, Nirbhaya Singh and Ratan Singh beating GajrajSingh with lathis. According to Lakhan Singh (PW-10), this occurrencetook place in Brar Khora near the passage where they were walking.Whereas according to Ram Singh (PW-11), the distance was only 10steps. Both of them stated that when they enquired from the accused asDto why they were beating Gajraj Singh, they were also threatened andthen they ran away. As far as this part of the story is concerned, there iscomplete identity between the versions of those two witnesses. It isalmost a parrot like version. The question is whether these witnessesare telling the truth or not. If we were to rely only on this portion of thetestimony there would be no difficulty in upholding the judgment of theEHigh Court.

5. The subsequent portion of the statements of these witnesses isso much at variance with each other and there are so many materialcontradictions in the statements of these two witnesses that as far asother aspects are concerned, a doubt has been cast in our minds thatFthese witnesses are prepared witnesses who have come out with a parrotlike version as far as the incident itself is concerned but when it comesto the attending circumstances their evidence falls apart and does notwithstand the scrutiny of cross-examination.

6. According to Lakhan Singh (PW-10), immediately after theGincident, they reached village Kotra. Lakhan Singh (PW-10) states thaton reaching village Kotra he narrated the entire incident to Vrish BhanSingh, Man Singh, Rudra Singh and Kishori. None of these four havebeen examined. Thereafter, Har Bilas (PW-15), who happens to be thebrother of the daughter-in-law of the deceased came to village Kotra H

and he was informed about the occurrence. If the occurrence occurredat about 2 pm., the witnesses would have reached village Kotra in 10minutes at the most. Mahender Singh (not examined) and Jabbar (notexamined) also arrived in the village. According to Lakhan Singh (PW-11), one Raghubir, servant of Brij Mohan, came and told him that thedead body of Gajraj Singh was lying in the jungle at Khora. Here it ispertinent to mention that Raghubir (PW-7), who has been examined, isactually servant of Gajraj Singh and not of Brij Mohan, but we will, forthe sake of this case, accept that Raghubir, who has been referred to inthe statement of Lakhan Singh (PW-10), is the servant of Brij Mohan.

7. Thereafter, according to Lakhan Singh (PW-10) he went to thepolice station to report the matter and lodged the complaint vide report-Exhibit P-10, which was read over and explained to him. However, incross-examination he gives a totally different version. According to him,he had reached the village Kotra between 2.30 and 3 pm. and thereafterhe, Rudra Singh, Ajab Singh (not examined), Har Bilas and Ram Singh(PW-11) consulted with each other and then went to report the matter tothe police. When they reached the police station the Head Constable,who was present in the police station, stated that he was calling theSDOP and the FIR would be lodged and further action will be taken onlyafter the SDOP was called. Thereafter, the SDOP reached the policestation at about 6 pm. and then Lakhan Singh reported the entire matterto the SDOP. It would be pertinent to mention here that neither theHead Constable nor the SDOP have been examined. Whereas inexamination-in-chief this witness has stated that his report was lodgedas soon as he reached the police station but when cross-examined hewas forced to admit that the report was lodged only on the arrival of theSDOP who further advised that they will visit the place of occurrencefirst and then lodge the report, which means that an oral report waslodged with the SDOP, then some persons went to the spot and aftercoming back from the spot the formal FIR was lodged.

8. Interestingly, this witness states that many villagers, includingRam Singh, along with SDOP and other police officials had visited theplace of occurrence but he did not go to the place of occurrence withthe SDOP.

9. Coming to the statement of Ram Singh (PW-11), as we havementioned above, as far as the main witnesses are concerned, statement AB

Ais almost similar. He also states that he went to the police station andlodged the report. However, he states that when they reached the villagethey did not tell anybody about the incident after reaching the village.This conduct is not natural. He then states that Har Bilas, MahenderSingh and Raghubir then informed in the village that Gajraj Singh hadexpired. This is totally different from what has been stated by LakhanBSingh. This witness also states that site plan of the place of occurrencewas not prepared by the police in his presence. He states that the siteplan does not bear his signatures. This witness has been confronted withthe statement recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C. (Ex.D-5) wherein thefact that he had seen the occurrence from a distance of 10 steps, hasCnot been specifically stated. We do not find this a material contradictionbecause in a Section 161 statement a person may or may not state theexact distance. However, whereas in Court this witness states that whenGajraj Singh was being beaten up, the accused were asking Gajraj Singhwhy he had not voted for Meera, this fact was not recorded in the Section161 statement which is a material contradiction because if this had actuallyDhappened, this would have been recorded in the statement under Section161 Cr.P.C. and would have also been stated by Lakhan Singh (PW-10)who was along side Ram Singh (PW-11). This clearly shows that thesewitnesses have been improving their statements with the passage oftime.

10. Another important aspect of the statement of this witness isthat he says that when he and Lakhan Singh (PW-10) witnessed theincident, they rushed back to the village and went to the shop of RudraSingh where Mahender Singh was also present. He states that none ofthem had made an effort to go back to the place of occurrence to saveFGajraj Singh. According to him, Har Bilas came after half an hour andtold them that Gajraj Singh had died. This is totally different from thestatement of Lakhan Singh (PW-10). According to him, it was Raghubir,servant of Brij Mohan, who informed about the death of Gajraj.Therefore, there is contradiction in the statement of these two witnessesas to who informed the villagers that Gajraj Singh was dead.G

11. The other major contradiction is that according to Ram Singh(PW-11) they reached the police station at 5 pm. at which time theDeputy Superintendent of Police had already reached the police station.This is totally different from the statement of Lakhan Singh (PW-10).

According to this witness, Lakhan Singh (PW-10) narrated the wholeincident to the Deputy Superintendent of Police and thereafter the DeputySuperintendent of Police said that they would first go to the place ofoccurrence and see the dead body and the complaint will be registeredthereafter. It seems that his reference to the Deputy Superintendent ofPolice is to the same person referred to as the SDOP by Lakhan Singh(PW-10). The contradiction is that whereas Lakhan Singh (PW-10) statedthat this person was not at the police station and came after about onehour, according to Ram Singh (PW-11) this person was already at thepolice station.

12. The first site plan (Ext.P-18) was prepared by Head ConstableSita Ram, who has not been examined, however, it is counter signed byone Jagdish, who has been examined as PW-14. Interestingly, the siteplan is alleged to be signed by both Lakhan Singh (PW-10) and RamSingh (PW-11) and the site plan indicates that it was prepared on theinstructions given by Lakhan Singh but Lakhan Singh states that he neverwent to the place of occurrence with the police and Ram Singh statesthat he never signed the site plan. We are not using the site plan tosupport the prosecution case or the case of the accused but the mannerin which the site plan was prepared clearly indicates that the investigationwas not a fair investigation.

13. We shall now deal with Somati (PW-6) and Raghubir (PW-7),the witnesses on whom the prosecution places reliance for the purposeof the last seen theory. However, before we deal with these twowitnesses, it would be pertinent to mention that the prosecution had alsoexamined one Smt. Puniya as PW-5, who has turned hostile. We arerecording this fact because her name finds mention in the statement ofboth these witnesses.

14. According to Somati (PW-6) at about 12 noon when she waspresent at her well, Gajraj Singh, who was in his residence was called byaccused Imrat Singh, who informed Gajraj Singh that they will consumeliquor together and thereafter her father-in-law Gajraj Singh left withImrat Singh. She also states that later Puniya (PW-5) told her that she(Puniya) had seen accused Imrat Singh and Hetam Singh beating GajrajSingh. According to this witness, her brother Har Bilas and one MahenderSingh came to her house and she informed them that her father-in-lawhad been beaten. According to this witness, she was informed about the AB

Abeating of her father-in-law by Puniya (PW-5) who has not supportedher version. She herself had not seen her father-in-law being beaten byanybody. In fact, this witness in cross-examination states that it was notPuniya who told her about Imrat Singh and Hetam Singh beating GajrajSingh but this fact was told to her by her brother Har Bilas. As far asRaghubir (PW-7) is concerned, he states that the accused Imrat SinghBcame at about 2 pm. and in his presence told Gajraj Singh to accompanyhim since they had prepared mutton. Interestingly, Somati (PW-6) hadnot stated that Raghubir (PW-7) was present when Imrat Singh came.Their version about the enticement given to Gajraj Singh is different.According to Somati it was liquor which was offered whereas accordingCto Raghubir (PW-7) it was mutton which was offered to Gajraj Singh.

15. Raghubir (PW-7) also states that he was informed by Puniyathat she had seen Imrat Singh and Hetam Singh beating Gajraj Singh.According to him, thereafter he along with Har Bilas and MahenderSingh went towards the jungle and saw Gajraj Singh lying dead. HeDfurther states that then he went to the village and told Lakhan Singh andMan Singh that the dead body of Gajraj Singh was lying in the jungle. Hethen stated that the dead body was lying in the river. According to him,Lakhan Singh and Man Singh told him that they had already seen thedead body of Gajraj Singh which is not the case of Lakhan Singh at all.

E16. The only other important witness to whom the reference isbeing made is Har Bilas (PW-15). He states that he was informed bySomati that Gajraj Singh had been called by Imrat Singh and both hadleft together. According to him, Puniya reached there and informed thatGajraj Singh had been taken by Imrat Singh and Hetam Singh and hewas beaten by them. Thereafter, he along with Mahender Singh andFRaghubir went in search of Gajraj Singh and saw the body of GajrajSingh lying in the river. He states that he saw no injuries on the body ofGajraj Singh which is difficult to believe because the prosecution story isthat Gajraj Singh was beaten to death by the five accused with lathis.The versions of Har Bilas and that of Lakhan Singh (PW-10) are totallyGdifferent. According to Lakhan Singh (PW-10) when Har Bilas (PW-15) came to the village, he did not know anything and it was only Raghubirwho came and informed that Gajraj Singh was dead. This casts a seriousdoubt on the prosecution story.

17. Another factor which we have taken into consideration is thata number of very important witnesses who should have been examinedhave not been examined. Neither Bhagwan Dass the potter who wassupposed to meet Harnam Singh in Bharon Kalan nor any other personfrom Bharon Kalan have been examined to support the version of LakhanSingh (PW-10) and Ram Singh (PW-11) that they actually went to BharonKalan.

18. The villagers who were first told about this incident by LakhanSingh (PW-10) and Ram Singh (PW-11) have not been examined. TheHead Constable who is alleged to have not recorded the FIR and saidthat he would wait for the SDOP has not been examined. The SDOP/Deputy Superintendent of Police has not been examined. The FIR hasbeen recorded admittedly after visiting the spot by the police and,therefore, there is a possibility that the story could have been concoctedafter seeing the site and conferring with all the villagers. It has come onrecord that Gajraj Singh was not a very popular man. He had a lot ofenemies. It has also come in evidence that almost all the witnesses havesome criminal antecedents and some cases are pending against them. Itmay be true that there was enmity between the two sides. Enmity, as isoften said is a double edged sword. It can be the motive but it can alsobe a reason to falsely implicate the other side. In the present case, keepingin view the various contradictions pointed out above and the fact that inview of the contradictions it is difficult to rely upon the statements ofLakhan Singh (PW-10) and Ram Singh (PW-11) as well as Somati (PW-6) and Raghubir (PW-7), we are of the view that a doubt has been castand the benefit of doubt has to be given to the accused.

19. We are of the view that the High Court and the Trial Court didnot take into consideration these contradictions of the witnesses andrelied upon the witnesses especially Lakhan Singh (PW-10) and RamSingh (PW-11) without referring to the attending circumstances to whichwe have referred to in detail hereinabove. In view of the above discussion,we allow the appeal, set aside the conviction of both the Courts below.Accused are acquitted accordingly. Accused are on bail. Their bail bondsare discharged.

Kalpana K. Tripathy

Appeal allowed.