Compelling Reason For Interference Of Appellate Court When Relevant And Convincing Materials Unjustifiably Eliminated: Chhattisgarh High Court

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, while overturning a wrongful acquittal by the Trial Court, observed,

“While exercising the appellate jurisdiction against judgment of acquittal, the High Courts or the appellate Courts are fully empowered to appreciate and reappreciate the evidence adduced on behalf of the parties while reversing the judgment of the trial Court. The appellate Court is required to discuss the grounds given by the trial Court to acquit the accused and then to dispel those reasons.”

Background

The Court was dealing with an Acquittal Appeal filed under Section 378(1) of CrPC where the State (appellant) had challenged the legality of an acquittal passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, North Bastar, Kanker (C.G.) (“Trial Court”).

Initially, one Lachhuram (complainant) had lodged an FIR reporting the murder of his father, Raghunath (deceased) by the accused respondents, who were claimed to be Naxalites. The accused had entered the house of the deceased with guns and thereafter took him and the complainant to the river bank where they tied the complainant's hands behind with a rope and beat him. The accused, along with other Naxalites, thereafter, assaulted the deceased with fists, bamboo sticks and later killed him.

Upon registration of the FIR, the accused were charged under Sections 147, 148, 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code (“IPC”) and Section 25/27 of the Arms Act. After conduction the postmortem over the body of the deceased, the doctor opined that the injuries sustained were antemortem in nature and the cause of death were injuries to vital organs of the body, which was homicidal in nature.

After providing an opportunity of hearing to the parties, the Trial Court acquitted the respondents of the charges levelled against them vide an order dated 10.02.2010 (“impugned order”). Aggrieved, the State approached the High Court challenging the veracity of the acquittal.

Findings

On the issue whether the death of the deceased was homicidal in nature, the Court noted that the Trial Court had, after relying on the findings in the postmortem, come to the conclusion that the death of the deceased was homicidal in nature. This conclusion was a finding of fact based on the evidence available on record, which was neither perverse nor contrary to record and consequently the Court affirmed the conclusion arrived at by the Trial Court in this regard.

On the question whether the accused had murdered the deceased, the Court noted that PW-1, who was an injured eye-witness and had lodged the FIR initially, had specifically mentioned the names of four accused persons and the names of rest of the accused in his statement recorded under Section 161 CrPC which was recorded on the same day as the FIR was registered. Thus, his statement proved beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the accused in the crime despite there being contradictions and omissions in the evidence and statements produced by the prosecution witnesses.

The Court now had to determine whether all the accused were equally liable for the crime and whether the accused were members of an unlawful assembly. For this, the Court delved into an understanding of Section 149 of IPC and explained,

“Section 149 IPC says that every member of an unlawful assembly shall be guilty of the offence committed in prosecution of the common object. Section 149 IPC is quite categorical. It says that if an offence is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object of that assembly, or such as the members of that assembly knew to be likely to be committed in prosecution of that object, every person who, at the time of committing of that offence, is a member of the said assembly; is guilty of that offence. Thus, if it is a case of murder under Section 302 IPC, each member of the unlawful assembly would be guilty of committing the offence under Section 302 IPC.”

The Court stated that it was clear from the evidence produced by PW-1 that the accused were part of an unlawful assembly which caused him injuries and committed the murder of the deceased.

Additionally, the Court held that the evidence of the prosecution was sufficient to establish that the accused had committed the murder of the deceased and the Trial Court, despite the overwhelming evidence against the accused, had erred in acquitting the accused. Relying on the judgments of the Supreme Court in C. Antony v. Raghavan Nair [AIR 2003 SC 182], Ramanand Yadav v. Prabhunath Jha [AIR 2004 SC 1053], and Tota Singh and another v. State of Punjab [AIR 1987 SC 1083], the Court expressed the need to interfere with the judgement of the Trial Court and consequently allowed the appeal by setting aside the impugned order.

The accused were thus convicted under Section 302/149 of IPC and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and pay a fine of Rs.1000/- each. Additionally, they were convicted under Section 307/149 and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years and pay a fine of Rs.200/- each on account of inflicting injuries on PW-1 and attempting to commit his murder.

Case Details:

Case Number: ACQUITTAL APPEAL No. 407 of 2010

Case Title: State of Chhattisgarh v. Surajram and 6 others

Date: 25.03.2025