Jharkhand High Court Sets Aside Death Sentence Over Unreliable Evidence and Procedural Lapses
Criminal Appeal DB No. 337 of 2020
By Navya Tiwari
The Jharkhand High Court, while deciding a death reference under Section 366 Cr.P.C. along with a criminal appeal, set aside the conviction and death sentence of the accused, holding that serious inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony, doubtful identification, and suppression of the earliest version of the incident rendered the prosecution case unreliable.
The case arose out of a gruesome incident dated 25 September 2004, wherein four persons were allegedly murdered by a group of twenty-to-twenty-five armed-assailants who forcibly entered the house of the informant and executed the victims by tying their hands and severing their heads using sharp-edged weapons. The prosecution case, based on the written report of the informant (P.W.7), attributed specific roles to various accused persons and alleged that the incident was linked to refusal to pay levy to a Naxalite group. The trial court convicted the accused under Sections 147, 148, 458/149 and 302/149 IPC and imposed the death penalty, which came up for confirmation before the High Court along with the appeal filed by the convicts.
The defence contended that the prosecution case suffered from multiple infirmities, including suppression of the earliest report given on the date of the incident, unreliable and contradictory eyewitness testimonies, and doubtful identification of the accused, particularly when several witnesses admitted that the assailants had covered their faces. It was further argued that the eyewitnesses gave exaggerated and inconsistent versions of the occurrence, and that the prosecution had failed to establish the participation of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The prosecution, on the other hand, maintained that the occurrence was proved through eyewitness accounts corroborated by medical evidence, and that minor inconsistencies ought not to discredit the entire case.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Justice Deepak Roshan, upon appreciation of evidence, found that the testimony of key eyewitnesses was not reliable. The Court noted that several witnesses claimed to have seen the occurrence from a distance or while hiding, yet provided detailed accounts assigning specific roles to each accused, which appeared improbable. Some witnesses admitted that the assailants had their faces covered, while others gave conflicting versions regarding visibility and identification, thereby rendering the identification of the accused doubtful.
The Court further observed that the informant himself admitted in cross-examination that he had hidden during the occurrence and came out only after the assailants had left, which contradicted his claim of being an eyewitness. Additionally, the Court found merit in the contention that the earliest version of the incident had been suppressed, as the informant claimed to have given a report on the night of the occurrence, whereas the FIR on record was dated the following day. Relying on Allarakha Habib Memon v. State of Gujarat, (2024) 9 SCC 546), ¶¶ 19,20 the Court held that such suppression warranted an adverse inference against the prosecution. Holding that the prosecution evidence was marked by inconsistencies, exaggerations, and lack of reliability, and that the participation of the accused was not proved beyond reasonable doubt, the High Court extended the benefit of doubt to the accused. Accordingly, the conviction and death sentence were set aside, the criminal appeal was allowed, the death reference was answered in the negative, and the accused were directed to be released forthwith.
