FIR Not An Encyclopedia; But It Can Be Used To Corroborate Or Contradict Informant To Establish Whether He Is A Trustworthy Witness Or Not: SC

The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of three men who were accused of causing death of a person by allegedly cutting and beating him with sickle, axe, and stick.

The Court was deciding a criminal appeal filed by the State against the judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior Bench by which the conviction of the accused men was reversed.

The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice C.T. Ravikumar and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia observed, “Thus, the position with respect to FIR is clear from the decisions referred supra that even though it is not meant to be an encyclopedia containing chronicle of all intricate and minute details, it could be used to corroborate its maker under Section 157 of the Evidence Act or to contradict its maker viz., the informant under Section 145 of the Evidence Act to establish whether he is a trustworthy witness or not."

The Bench noted that the prosecution had not revealed, rather established, the genesis of the incident that led to the death of Naseem Khan and none of the witnesses had deposed as to the genesis of the incident. 

Advocate Rukhmini Bobde represented the appellant/State while AOR Lokesh Kumar Choudhary represented the respondents/accused.

In this case, as per the prosecution, in 1996, the respondents allegedly by cutting/beating with sickle, axe and stick caused death of a man, near the village well of Karaikheda and thereby committed the crime punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34, of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The Trial Court relied on the oral testimonies of the minor brothers and mother of the deceased and convicted the respondents. The respondents were sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life along with a fine of Rs. 35,000/-. The respondents filed appeal jointly before the High Court and the Court acquitted them of the offences with which they were charged and allowed the appeal. Hence, the State approached the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court in the above regard, said, “While being cross-examined PW-9 deposed that he did not tell the police that Ramjan with parena, Musaf Khan with farsa and, Habib Khan with axe assaulted his brother Naseem Khan. While being examined in chief he would depose that his mother was also beaten by the accused persons. It is to be noted that there is absolutely no such case even for PW-8, the mother of PW-9. As can be seen from paragraph 6 of his oral testimony the defence had brought out some other omissions and contradictions. The aforementioned omissions on the part of PWs 5 and 9 cannot be said to be minor contradictions to be taken lightly as according to them they did not name the accused persons in their previous statements made to the police.”

The Court added that the omissions brought amount to material contradiction which will go into the core of the prosecution case and the oral testimonies would reveal that they stated about the infliction of injuries on the deceased, their elder brother by the respondents with the weapons for the first time only before the Court while being examined.

“That apart, it is to be noted that though the case of the prosecution is that both PWs 5 and 9 had gone with deceased Naseem Khan for taking bath on the fateful day the evidence of PW-8 would reveal that in her previous statement to the police she had not disclosed the said fact to the police”, it further noted.

The Court observed that there can be no good reason to hold that the prosecution had succeeded in conclusively proving the guilt of the accused/respondents beyond reasonable doubt warranting displacement of the finding of the High Court that in view of the omissions and contradictions, the oral testimonies of the witnesses are not reliable and the respondents are entitled to the benefit of doubt.

“We have already taken note of the decision in Dharmaraj’s case (supra) involving a challenge against judgment of acquittal in a murder case in reversal of conviction entered against the accused by the trial Court holding that if on facts the view taken by the High Court is a reasonable possible view, though not the only view that could be taken, interference with acquittal would be uncalled for”, it also said.

The Court, therefore, concluded that the respondents are entitled to the benefit of doubt.

Accordingly, the Apex Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the acquittal.

Cause Title- The State of Madhya Pradesh v. Ramjan Khan & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 823)

Appearance:

Appellant: AOR Pashupathi Nath Razdan, Advocates Rukhmini Bobde, Abhimanyu Singh, Soumya Priyadarshinee, Amit Srivastava, Amlaan Kumar, Vinayak Aren, Maitreyee Jagat Joshi, and Astik Gupta.

Respondents: AOR Lokesh Kumar Choudhary

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