Appellate Court to record pertinent findings if it is inclined to reverse the judgement:Apex Court encapsulates legal position governing High Court's scope of interference in appeal challenging acquittal order
JusticesB.R.Gavai& Sandeep Mehta [19-04-2024]

Read Order:BABU SAHEBAGOUDA RUDRAGOUDAR AND OTHERS v. STATE OF KARNATAKA[SC- CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(S). 985 OF 2010]

Tulip Kanth

New Delhi, April 23, 2024: Terming the FIR in question as a post-investigation document which didn't inspire confidence, the Supreme Court has acquitted the murder convicts sentenced to life. The Top Court also asserted that the disclosure statements couldn’t be read in evidence and the recoveries made in furtherance thereof were nonest in the eyes of law.

It was alleged by the prosecution that in the morning of September 19, 2001, the deceased Malagounda, son of complainant, along with labourers/servants-PW-2, PW-3, PW-4 & PW-5 had gone to put up a check dam in their land. When they were returning back to the village after their work, A-1, A-2, A-3 and A-4 suddenly came around and exhorted that the way the complainant party had murdered Sangound, they would take revenge upon the members of the complainant party in the same manner. A-1, A-2, A-3 and A-4 holding weapons belaboured Malagounda, as a result of which he fell down. The assailants thereafter threatened the complainant(PW-1) that if he tried to intervene, he too would meet the same fate as his son. Fearing for his own life, the complainant ran away and hid behind the bushes in order to avoid being beaten by the accused.

After sunset, the complainantreturned to the village and narrated about the incident to his family members. A written complaint of this incident came to be submitted and an FIR was registered. After conclusion of investigation, a charge sheet came to be filed against the appellants(A-1, A-2, A-3) and other accused(A-4, A-5 and A-6) for the offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 506(2) and Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC in the Court of jurisdictional Magistrate. The case being exclusively sessions triable was committed to the Court of Sessions Judge, Bijapur where charges were framed against the accused for the above offences. 

The accused appellants had approached the Top Court challenging the judgment rendered by the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court reversing the acquittal of the accused appellants and convicting them. A-1, A-2 and A-3 were sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. The appeal as against A-5 and A-6 was dismissed, while appeal qua A-4 stood abated on account of his death. 

The Division Bench of Justice B.R.Gavai& Justice Sandeep Mehta referred to the Judgments in Rajesh Prasad v. State of Bihar and Another ; H.D. Sundara&Ors. v. State of Karnataka and held that the scope of interference by an appellate Court for reversing the judgment of acquittal recorded by the trial Court in favour of the accused has to be exercised within four corners of these principles:

• The judgment of acquittal suffers from patent perversity;
• The judgment is based on a misreading/omission to consider material evidence on record;
• No two reasonable views are possible and only the view consistent with the guilt of the accused is possible from the evidence available on record.

It further highlighted that the appellate Court, in order to interfere with the judgment of acquittal would have to record pertinent findings on the above factors if it is inclined to reverse the judgment of acquittal rendered by the trial Court.

The Bench was of the view that none of these essential mandates governing an appeal against acquittal were adverted to by the Division Bench which proceeded to virtually decide the appeal as a first Court on independent appreciation of evidence and recorded its own findings to hold the accused appellants(A-1, A-2 and A-3) guilty of the charge under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentenced them to imprisonment for life. 

The testimony of the complainant(PW-1) suffered from patent infirmities, contradictions and inherent loopholes which brought him within the category of wholly unreliable witness. “The non-production of the Daily Dairy maintained at the police station assumes great significance in the backdrop of these facts. Apparently thus, the FIR(Exhibit P-10) is a post investigation document and does not inspire confidence”, it held. Not only this but the claim of complainant(PW-1) that he was an eye witness to the incident was totally contradicted by PW-6 as he did not state about the presence of the complainant(PW- 1) at the place of incident while the victim was being assaulted. 

It was further observed, “The conduct of the family members of the deceased and the other villagers in not taking any steps to protect the dead body for the whole night and instead, casually going back to their houses without giving a second thought as to what may happen to the mortal remains of the deceased, lying exposed to the elements is another circumstance which creates a grave doubt in the mind of the Court that no one had actually seen the incident and it was a case of blind murder which came to light much later.”

The version of the medical jurist also created a doubt. Noting that the witnesses admitted that it had been raining incessantly in the village for almost three days, it was observed that there was no logical explanation for the presence of the deceased and the servants in their field on the date and time of the incident

Reiterating that motive acts as a double-edged sword, the Bench opined that the very fact that members of the prosecution party were arraigned as accused in the murder of Sangound, son of A-4, this could also have been the motive for the prosecution witness to rope in the accused appellants for the murder of Malagounda.

Reliance was also placed upon State of Uttar Pradesh v. Deoman Upadhyaya and it was held, “The statement of an accused recorded by a police officer under Section 27 of the Evidence Act is basically a memorandum of confession of the accused recorded by the Investigating Officer during interrogation which has been taken down in writing. The confessional part of such statement is inadmissible and only the part which distinctly leads to discovery of fact is admissible in evidence.”

It was also opined that neither the so called voluntary statement nor the seizure memo were proved by the Investigating Officer(PW- 27) in his evidence.It was also asserted that the entire prosecution case came under the shadow of doubt as the evidence of seizure of weapons of the offence was not trustworthy, the prosecution did not procure any serological opinion to establish blood group on the recovered weapons so recovered and the evidence of the eye-witness was not trustworthy.

Thus, the Bench reversed the impugned judgment and acquitted the accused appellants of all the charges.