Prosecution Failed To Show Common Intention: Supreme Court Quashes HC’s Conviction Of 3 Policemen In Murder Case
The Supreme Court allowed the Appeal challenging the Order of conviction by the Uttarakhand High Court.
While holding that the prosecution failed to show that the policemen had common intention with the accused in a murder case, the Supreme Court has quashed the order of their conviction by the High Court and affirmed the earlier acquittal by the Trial Court.
The Court allowed the Appeal by three policemen (Appellants) accused under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC and Section 27(1) of the Arms Act, 1959 challenging the Order of conviction by the Uttarakhand High Court which set aside the order of acquittal qua the Appellants.
A Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih held, “In the present case, as observed by the learned trial judge, the prosecution has failed to place on record any evidence to show that the accused Nos. 2, 3 and 4 (the appellants herein) had common intention with accused No.1-Jagdish Singh prior to the accused No.1-Jagdish Singh’s shooting at the deceased resulting in her death.”
Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat represented the Appellants, while Additional Advocate General Kaushalpati Gautam appeared for the Respondent.
Brief Facts
A team of police officers, including the prime accused and the Appellants, were intercepting a car on suspicion of smuggling illegal liquor. The Prosecution alleged that the prime accused fired a shot from his revolver, hitting and killing the wife of the complainant. The complainant lodged an FIR under Section 302 of the IPC.
The Trial Court convicted the prime accused but acquitted the Appellants holding that the prosecution had failed to prove they shared a common intention to commit the crime.
The State of Uttarakhand appealed the acquittal of the three officers before the High Court, which overturned the acquittal and convicted them under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC, sentencing them to life imprisonment. The High Court stated that their presence in the same vehicle as the prime accused was sufficient to infer common intention.
Court’s Observations
The Supreme Court reiterated that the interference with the finding of acquittal recorded by the Trial Court would be warranted by the High Court only if the judgment of acquittal suffers from “patent perversity; that the same is based on a misreading/omission to consider material evidence on record; and that 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.”
The Bench noted that the Trial Court had held that there was no evidence to come to a conclusion that the Appellants who were in the car with the prime accused had shared a common intention with him to fire upon or to kill the deceased.
“By now it is a settled principle of law that for convicting the accused with the aid of Section 34 of the IPC the prosecution must establish prior meetings of minds. It must be established that all the accused had preplanned and shared a common intention to commit the crime with the accused who has actually committed the crime. It must be established that the criminal act has been done in furtherance of the common intention of all the accused,” the Court explained.
Consequently, the Court held, “The judgment and order of the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital in Government Appeal No. 100 of 2008 is quashed and aside.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the Appeal.
Cause Title: Constable 907 Surendra Singh & Anr. v. State Of Uttarakhand (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 114)
Appearance:
Appellants: Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat; Advocates Munindra Dvivedi, Divya Bhalla, Sweety Singh, Archana Kumari, Rahul Pandey, Harsh Kumar, Sudipta Singha Roy, Himanshu Raj, Tara Chauhan, Shilpi Dey Aaditya, Kaushik Kumar Dey, Shehla Chaudhary, Md. Anas Chaudhary and Mohd. Sharyab Ali; AOR B. Vijayalakshmi Menon, Atul Kumar and Ansar Ahmad Chaudhary
Respondent: Additional Advocate General Kaushalpati Gautam; AOR Akshat Kumar, Kamlendra Mishra and Manan Verma; Advocates Advitiya Awasthi, Rajeev Kumar Dubey, Rachna Gandhi, Sumit Kumar and Shubham Arora
