High Court Must Provide Clear Findings On Each Charge Against Accused While Reversing Trial Court's Acquittal: Supreme Court

The Court was hearing a Criminal Appeal filed by two appellants who were implicated in FIR along with three others for charges under Sections 143, 147, 148, and 302 read with 149, and 120B of the IPC. The trial Court acquitted them of all charges. The High Court reversed the acquittal and convicted all five accused. Hence, the present Appeal.

The bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Aravind Kumar observed, “…once the Trial Court found no evidence to convict the accused, the burden was upon the High Court, while reversing the said judgment, to record clear findings in relation to each of the charges and, more particularly, the charge of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B IPC.”

Brief Facts-

It is the case of the prosecution that the five accused conspired to murder the victim and attacked him with deadly weapons. The victim was a real estate businessman and had mediated the sale of land owned by Appellant No. 1 for which an advance of ₹2,50,000/- was paid. Appellant No. 1 later sought to cancel the deal. When the deceased refused to intervene, Appellant No. 1 allegedly threatened him which led to the fatal attack.

The Court referred to the decision in Chandrappa and others vs. State of Karnataka where the Court culled out general principles regarding the power of the Appellate Court while dealing with an appeal against a judgment of acquittal. The Court quoted, “(1) An appellate court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded.

(2) The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law.

(3) Various expressions, such as, “substantial and compelling reasons”, “good and sufficient grounds”, “very strong circumstances”, “distorted conclusions”, “glaring mistakes”, etc. are not intended to curtail extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature of “flourishes of language” to emphasize the reluctance of an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion.

(4) An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal, there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial court.

(5) If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.”

The Court further mentioned the decision in Rajendra Prasad v. State of Bihar, a 3-judge Bench of the SC pointed out that, “it would be essential for the High Court, in an appeal against acquittal, to clearly indicate firm and weighty grounds from the record for discarding the reasons of the Trial Court in order to be able to reach a contrary conclusion of guilt of the accused.”

“…in an appeal against acquittal, it would not be legally sufficient for the High Court to take a contrary view about the credibility of witnesses and it is absolutely imperative that the High Court convincingly finds it well-nigh impossible for the Trial Court to reject their testimony.”, the Court quoted further.

The Court said that the brusque approach of the High Court in dealing with the appeal, resulting in the conviction of Appellants, reversing the cogent and well-considered judgment of acquittal by the Trial Court giving them the benefit of the doubt, cannot be sustained.

Accordingly, the Court allowed the Appeal.