The Supreme Court has acquitted four men who had been convicted in connection with the 2001 murder of Dhruba Pradhan in Odisha, finding that the prosecution failed to establish their guilt through either eyewitness accounts or circumstantial evidence.
A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Prasanna B Varale set aside the Orissa High Court’s judgment and extended the benefit of doubt to the accused.
The case arose from an incident in which Pradhan was allegedly attacked by a group of men after one of the accused had earlier threatened him at the informant’s house.
According to the prosecution, the accused later went looking for Pradhan while carrying weapons. He was eventually intercepted while travelling on a motorcycle, assaulted with stones and weapons, and his motorcycle was thrown into a pond.
Of the 18 persons originally chargesheeted, 14 faced trial. The trial court convicted six persons under Sections 148, 506 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code, along with Section 149 IPC, and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Eight others were acquitted.
The High Court took a different view of the eyewitness evidence. It found that the witnesses could not realistically have identified the attackers on a pitch-dark night. Despite rejecting that part of the prosecution case, however, the High Court sustained the convictions by relying on the surrounding circumstances.
Four of the convicts then approached the Supreme Court after two of the six convicted persons died while the appeals were pending.
Contradictions in eyewitness accounts
Before the Supreme Court, the appellants argued that once the High Court had itself concluded that the witnesses could not have identified the assailants in the prevailing darkness, the convictions could not be sustained merely by relying on circumstantial evidence.
It was also argued that several prosecution witnesses were relatives of the deceased and that their accounts contained significant inconsistencies.
The defence further pointed to the deceased’s alleged criminal history and submitted that he had previously faced 13 criminal cases, including allegations involving rape and murder. According to the appellants, this provided a possible reason for false implication, particularly when a large number of villagers were allegedly hostile towards him.
Another circumstance relied upon by the defence was the absence of any recovery made at the instance of the appellants. Despite the prosecution’s claim that hundreds of villagers had joined the search for Pradhan, no independent witness was examined to support the prosecution version.
The State, on the other hand, maintained that the circumstances formed a complete chain pointing towards the accused. It relied on evidence concerning the earlier threat, the subsequent armed search, the interception of Pradhan and medical and recovery evidence.
The prosecution also argued that in a case involving an unlawful assembly under Section 149 IPC, it was not necessary to establish a separate overt act against every accused once the common object of the assembly was proved.
Supreme Court finds material inconsistency
The Supreme Court found substance in the appellants’ arguments and closely examined the testimony of the prosecution witnesses.
The bench highlighted a contradiction between the FIR and the subsequent testimony.
According to the Court, PW-3 had stated in the FIR that only PW-17 and PW-26 had witnessed the occurrence. However, PW-4 later attempted to place PW-3 and other prosecution witnesses at the scene as eyewitnesses.
The discrepancy, the Court said, created a significant inconsistency regarding who had actually witnessed the attack.
The Court also focused on the circumstances prevailing at the scene. The incident allegedly occurred on a pitch-dark night, with the only source of light being a torch carried by the assailants themselves.
This made the prosecution’s claim that the witnesses could identify the attackers particularly difficult to accept.
Referring to earlier decisions, including State of UP v. Ashok Kumar and Tamilselvan v. State, the bench noted that the circumstances in the present case made identification even more doubtful than situations where witnesses had at least the benefit of moonlight.
The Court also took note of the High Court’s categorical finding that the prosecution witnesses could not have seen the incident in such darkness or identified the assailants merely from the sounds of the assault.
Having found that the eyewitness account could not safely support the prosecution case and that the circumstantial evidence did not independently establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court concluded that the appellants were entitled to the benefit of doubt.
The convictions and sentences of the four surviving accused were consequently set aside, and they were acquitted.
