“Attempted Robbery Gone Wrong”: Delhi High Court Converts Murder Conviction Of One Accused To Culpable Homicide ; Acquits Three Others In 24-Year-Old Case
The Bench reiterated that subsequent refusal to participate in the TIP could not be treated as an adverse circumstance.
The Delhi High Court has held that where the accused were armed with knives but the deceased died of suffocation rather than a stab wound, and the assailants had gagged and tied him rather than kill him outright, the offence would amount to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part-II IPC, and not murder under Section 302 IPC, modifying the conviction of three appellants accordingly.
The Bench separately acquitted three other appellants convicted of the same 1997 murder, holding that where eyewitnesses had already identified the accused in court before any Test Identification Parade was held, their subsequent refusal to participate in the TIP could not be treated as an adverse circumstance against them.
A Division Bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja observation, “…it is borne from the evidence that appellants were armed with knives. If they had intended to kill Nar Singh, they would have easily stabbed him to death, and had not taken the pain to gag him, tie his limbs with ropes, stab him and then suffocate him with foreign material to cause his death. It appears that the appellants only wanted to ensure that the deceased should not raise any hue and cry. It is a clear case of attempted robbery gone wrong and the homicidal death was incidental to the commission of intended robbery. There is no evidence on record that appellants had any previous enmity or ill-will with the deceased, or that due to such reason, they intruded in the house to kill him. That being so, we are of the opinion that prosecution has failed to establish the charge under Section 302 IPC against the appellants but they are held guilty of culpable homicide, not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part-II IPC”.
Advocate Devraj Singh appeared for the petitioner and Aman Usman, APP appeared for the respondent.
On the night of September 19–20, 1997, six accused allegedly rented a room in the victim Nar Singh's house in Delhi's Nangloi before attempting a robbery. When the victim's wives raised an alarm after encountering intruders, the assailants fled, leaving Nar Singh tied, gagged and fatally injured.
The post-mortem attributed his death to suffocation caused by gagging. Following arrests and recoveries over the next few weeks, all six accused were convicted by the Trial Court in 2002 under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment, with two also convicted under the Arms Act. During the pendency of their appeals, three appellants were declared proclaimed offenders in 2025, and the High Court appointed amicus curiae to represent them.
On the question of identification, the Bench found that appellants Firoz @ Sagar, Shehzad and Sanjay Kumar were strangers to the eyewitnesses PW-3 and PW-9, were arrested four days after the incident, and were not described in the FIR or any statement recorded under Section 161 CrPC.
It noted that these witnesses had already identified the appellants at Tis Hazari Court on September 24, 1997, a day before the formal TIP was conducted on September 25, 1997, rendering the TIP proceedings meaningless and their refusal to participate legally inconsequential, relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in Raj Kumar alias Bheema v. State (NCT of Delhi) 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2465.
Since no other evidence connected these three appellants to the offence, including an unconnected knife recovery yielding a "no reaction" FSL result and an inadmissible disclosure statement of a co-accused, the Court held there was no evidence to sustain their conviction. As to appellants Rajesh, Nasim and Rahish Khan, the Bench found their identity firmly established through the consistent testimony of PW-3, PW-9 and PW-18, holding that minor inconsistencies arising from the trauma of a nighttime armed intrusion did not amount to material contradictions, relying on the Supreme Court's decision in State of H.P. v. Hukum Chand alias Monu. The Court discarded the alleged dying declaration of the deceased as unreliable, given contradictions between witnesses and the medical finding that death was by suffocation, and excluded the appellants' statements before the Magistrate as neither a valid judicial confession under Section 164 CrPC nor a usable extra-judicial confession, since the incriminating contents were never put to them under Section 313 CrPC.
On the offence itself, the Bench held that although the appellants were armed with knives, the medical evidence showed no fatal stab injury, and the manner of the offence, gagging, tying and eventual suffocation, indicated an intention only to prevent an outcry during a robbery rather than to kill, concluding the death was incidental to a robbery gone wrong.
The Court set aside the conviction and sentence of appellants Firoz @ Sagar, Shehzad and Sanjay Kumar, acquitting them, with their bail bonds to remain valid for six months under Section 481 BNSS.
The conviction of appellants Rajesh Kumar, Nasim and Rahish Khan under Section 302/34 IPC was modified to one under Section 304 Part-II read with Section 34 IPC, with Rahish Khan's conviction under Section 25 of the Arms Act maintained. The matter was listed for September 2, 2026 for arguments on quantum of sentence, with a fresh nominal roll of the three appellants to be requisitioned from the Jail Superintendent.
Cause Title: Firoz @ Sagar v. State (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:6282)
Appearances:
Petitioner: Devraj Singh, Rameezuddin Raja, Tanya Sharma and Aditi Sharma, Advocates.
Respondent: Aman Usman, APP, Manvendra Yadav, Advocates.