Contradictions Too Trivial To Discard Entire Prosecution Case: SC Upholds Conviction In 4 Decades Old Murder Case
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction in a four decades old murder case observing that entire prosecution case cannot be discarded citing trivial contradictions.
The trial court in 1998 had convicted the accused for the murder of a person (Section 302 IPC) and attempted murder of another (Section 307 IPC) in the year 1985 and consequently sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld this decision.
Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta observed, “The trivial contradictions sought to be highlighted by learned senior counsel for the appellant regarding absence of empty cartridges etc. at the place of incident and the plea of alibi is not tenable because we find that these contradictions are far too trivial so as to discard the entire prosecution case which is based on reliable and trustworthy set of eye witnesses whose evidence is corroborated by the evidence of the Medical Jurist and other attending circumstances.”
Sr. Advocate P.H. Parekh represented the appellant, while AOR Pashupathi Nath Razdan appeared for the respondent.
The accused submitted that the prosecution’s witnesses were “interested partisan witnesses” since they were closely related to the deceased and hence, their evidence should not be accepted in the absence of corroboration.
Since the accused had “suffered” 14 years of substantive imprisonment and nearly 22 years imprisonment with remission, he “implored” the Court to accept his appeal challenging the impugned judgment and acquit him of the charges.
The Supreme Court discarded the arguments advanced by the accused observing that “in a case involving gruesome broad daylight double murder by repeated gun firing, it is unlikely that any of the persons from the neighbourhood, would have the courage to step forward as witnesses.”
Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment based on the reliability of the eyewitness testimonies presented by the prosecution and pointed out the lack of substantive contradictions in their accounts.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.
Cause Title: Ramvir @ Saket Singh v. The State of Madhya Pradesh (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 308)
Appearance:
Appellant: Sr. Advocate P.H. Parekh; AOR Varun Punia; Advocate Jitendra Singh
Respondent: AOR Pashupathi Nath Razdan; Advocates Nirmal Kumar Ambastha, Mirza Kayesh Begg, Maitryee Jagat Joshi, Astik Gupta, Akanksha Gupta, Argha Roy, Ojaswini Gupta, Ruby and Mamta Bharadwaj
