Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Mahi Pal vs State Of Haryana on 23 July, 2015
Bench: Ranjan Gogoi, N.V. Ramana
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ITEM NO.101 COURT NO.8 SECTION IIB
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 948/2008
MAHI PAL APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
STATE OF HARYANA RESPONDENT(S)
[WITH APPLN.(S) FOR RECALLING THE COURT'S ORDER AND OFFICE REPORT]
Date : 23/07/2015 This appeal was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJAN GOGOI
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA
For Appellant(s) Mr. Mahabir Singh, Sr.Adv.
Mr. Satpal Singh,Adv.
Ms. Preeti Singh, Adv.
Mr. Abhishek Jain, Adv.
For Respondent(s) Ms. Nupur Choudhary, Adv.
Mr. Hitesh Malik, Adv.
For Mr. Kamal Mohan Gupta,Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
The appeal is allowed in terms of the signed order.
[VINOD LAKHINA] [ASHA SONI]
COURT MASTER COURT MASTER
[SIGNED ORDER IS PLACED ON THE FILE] Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Vinod Lakhina Date: 2015.07.28 18:21:15 IST Reason: 1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 948 OF 2008 MAHI PAL ...APPELLANT VERSUS STATE OF HARYANA ...RESPONDENT ORDER
1. Aggrieved by the reversal of his acquittal from the offence under Section 302 IPC, the appellant has filed this appeal upon grant of special leave under Article 136 of the Constitution of India.
2. The relevant facts may be capsuled at the outset.
3. The prosecution case in short is that in the intervening night of 4th and 5th August, 1994, the accused appellant Mahi Pal and one Dan Singh had come to the roof of the house of deceased 2 Ranbir Singh while Ranbir Singh and his family members were asleep. The prosecution alleges that earlier there was an incident which had occurred 20-25 days back where the accused appellant Mahi Pal had charged the son of the deceased as having committed a theft. According to the prosecution, in the night of occurrence, besides the deceased, his wife PW-3 Mahabiri and PW-4 Manbir Singh, the brother-in-law of the deceased were also sleeping along with some of the children. Accused Dan Singh, according to the prosecution, apprehended the deceased in his cot and forcibly held him back. At that point of time, the accused appellant Mahi Pal is alleged to have struck a blow with an axe on the neck of the deceased. Thereafter, according to the prosecution, both the accused ran away. The injured Ranbir Singh was profusely bleeding. He was taken to Ballabgarh General Hospital in a tractor belonging to one Jeeta. It is not very clear as to at what time the injured reached the hospital but it appears that it was 3 so between 4.00 a.m. and 5.00 a.m. According to the prosecution, at 4.50 a.m. the doctor at General Hospital, Ballabgarh reported the incident to the Ballabgarh Police Station and after giving life saving drugs to the injured referred him to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at New Delhi. The injured was brought to the AIIMS from where he was referred to Safdarjung Hospital. While the injured was undergoing treatment in the Safdarjung Hospital, the Police from the Ballabragh Police Station reached the said Hospital and recorded the statement of P.W.3- Mahabiri. On the basis of the said statement, a First Information Report (FIR) in question was registered initially under Section 324/34 IPC which was later converted to Section 307/34 IPC. As the injured Ranbir Singh died on 11th August, 1994, the offence alleged was converted to one under Section 302/34 IPC.
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4. The case registered was duly investigated on completion of which a charge sheet was filed against both the accused. On being committed for trial before the learned Sessions Judge, Faridabad, charge was framed against the accused under Section 302/34 IPC to which they pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.
5. In the course of the trial nine (09) witnesses were examined on behalf of the prosecution and one (01) on behalf of the defence. After recording the statement of the accused persons under Section 313 Cr.P.C. the learned trial Court returned a verdict of acquittal. Aggrieved the State of Haryana filed an appeal before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh. The High Court by its impugned order dated 18th May, 2007 maintained the acquittal of accused Dan Singh but reversed the same in the case of accused appellant Mahi Pal and convicted him under Section 302 IPC and sentenced him to 5 undergo rigorous imprisonment for life. Aggrieved, the accused is before us in the present appeal.
6. We have heard Mr. Mahabir Singh, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the accused appellant and Ms. Nupur Choudhary, learned counsel appearing for the State of Haryana.
7. Before adverting to the merits of the matter, it would be necessary to briefly notice the cardinal principles that govern the exercise of jurisdiction of the High Court while hearing an appeal against an order of acquittal. Out of numerous precedents that are available on the point, illustratively we may refer to the decision of this Court in Ramanand Yadav vs. Prabhu Nath Jha and others [(2003) 12 SCC 606] where this Court held that though there is no embargo on the appellate court in reviewing the evidence upon which an order of acquittal is founded, generally, the order of acquittal will not be interfered with because the presumption of innocence of the 6 accused is further strengthened by his acquittal. This Court went on to say that if two views are possible on the evidence adduced in the case, the view favourable to the accused ought to be adopted. It was further held that the principle to be followed by the appellate Court while considering an appeal against the judgment of acquittal is to interfere only when there are compelling and substantial reasons. Illustratively but not exhaustively, this Court laid down that if the judgment of acquittal is clearly unreasonable and relevant and convincing evidence has been ignored the same would constitute a good ground for interference.
8. In a recent judgment of this Court in Basappa vs. State of Karnataka [(2014) 5 SCC 154] after recollecting the five cardinal principles governing the powers of the Appeal Court while dealing with an appeal against an order of acquittal as laid down in Chandrappa vs. State of 7 Karnataka [(2007) 4 SCC 415 (Para 42)], this Court had taken the view that if the judgment of the trial Court acquitting the accused is based on no material or is otherwise perverse or the view taken by the trial Court is wholly unreasonable or it is not a plausible view or there is non-consideration of any relevant evidence or there is palpable misreading of evidence, such circumstances would justify the interference. It is the aforesaid brought principles that will now have to be applied to the facts of the present case.
9. The trial Court on a consideration of the evidence had noticed several contradictions in the evidence of the eye-witnesses (P.Ws. 3 and 4) with reference to their previous statements and also certain unnatural and unexplained features of the case. We will confine our consideration to the latter inasmuch as, in our considered view, the contradictions referred to by the trial Court 8 though proved in accordance with Section 145 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 could be viewed as not very significant and in any case can be explained by the lapse of time between the statements recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C. and the evidence tendered in the Court. Insofar as the unnatural/unexplained features of the case are concerned, which have to be borne in mind while testing the intrinsic worth of the eye-witnesses' account, apart from the fact that P.Ws. 3 and 4 did not offer any resistance and come to the aid of the deceased, the evidence on record discloses that the clothes of P.W.3 was smeared with blood of the deceased who was profusely bleeding. The prosecution did not take possession of the said clothes. No explanation is forthcoming. P.W.4, who had assisted P.W.3 in taking care of the injured and in taking him to the Hospital, had stated in his deposition that the garments worn by him were not smeared with blood. This is a vital discrepancy which has not been explained by the 9 prosecution. Furthermore, according to P.W.4, about 20 persons had assembled at the place of occurrence. These persons were from the neighbourhood. None of the said persons has been examined by the prosecution. No explanation is forthcoming. The deceased was removed to the Ballabgarh General Hospital in a tractor belonging to one Jeeta. Jeeta was not examined. The sister and brother-in-law of P.Ws.3 and 4 were residing in the same village about 2-3 houses away. They were not informed about the said incident. The deceased initially was taken to the Ballabgarh General Hospital at about 4.00 – 5.00 a.m. Ballabgarh Police Station is about 200 yards from the Hospital. Neither P.W.3 nor P.W. 4 had informed the Police. In fact, there was no report of the incident by either P.W.3 or P.W.4 or anybody else until 5.30 p.m. of 5th August, 1994 when the statement of P.W. 3 was recorded by the Ballabgarh Police in the Safdarjung Hospital. 10
10. If the learned trial Court on a consideration of the above features of the evidence had taken the view that the eye-witnesses' version tendered by P.Ws. 3 and 4 is of doubtful credibility, can it be said that the said view is palpably unreasonable or impossible to be reached? Our answer to the above must be in the negative. The High Court in the impugned order has held that the view of the trial Court is perverse as the conclusion on the evidence ought to be different. Surely the same would not make the conclusion of the trial court either perverse or impossible. Therefore not only on the strength of the ratio of the decisions referred to in the preceding paragraphs it was not open for the High Court to hold so even otherwise the same would not make the view taken by the trial Court a perverse one.
11. Though the acquittal of the second accused Dan Singh maintained by the High Court has 11 attained finality in the absence of any challenge by the State, we cannot help in observing that the basis indicated by us could be a surer basis for the said acquittal rather than by holding that the act attributed to the second accused is trivial. However, the said acquittal not being under challenge we would not be justified in dilating the said aspect of the case any further.
12. In the above circumstances, we are of the view that the conclusions recorded by the High Court should not have our approval. We, therefore, allow this appeal; set aside the order of the High Court and acquit the accused appellant Mahi Pal of the charges levelled against him. The bail bond, if any, shall stand discharged.
....................,J.
(RANJAN GOGOI) ....................,J.
(N.V. RAMANA) NEW DELHI JULY 23, 2015