{"id":588,"date":"2023-06-27T15:21:50","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T09:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/?p=588"},"modified":"2023-06-27T15:21:50","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T09:51:50","slug":"supreme-court-acquits-murder-accused-stresses-conclusive-circumstantial-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/supreme-court-acquits-murder-accused-stresses-conclusive-circumstantial-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme court acquits murder accused reiterating that circumstantial evidence should conclusively point towards a singular hypothesis establishing the guilt of the accused"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAGHAVENDRA PRATAP SINGH @ PANKAJ SINGH\u00a0 (<\/strong>APPELLANT) Vs\u00a0 <\/strong>STATE OF CHHATTISGARH (<\/strong>RESPONDENT)<\/h1>\n

(CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 915 OF 2016)<\/p>\n

(2JB, B.R. GAVAI and SANJAY KAROL JJ., delivered by SANJAY KAROL J.<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Facts:<\/u><\/strong> The present appeal has been preferred against the Judgment passed by the\u00a0\u00a0 High\u00a0\u00a0 Court\u00a0\u00a0 of\u00a0\u00a0 Chhattisgarh\u00a0\u00a0 at Bilaspur\u00a0\u00a0 in\u00a0\u00a0 Criminal\u00a0\u00a0 Appeal of 2013, by which he stands convicted for having committed an offence punishable under Section 302, Indian Penal Code, 1860 with life imprisonment and fine; under Section 201 of the IPC, punishable with 7 years Rigorous imprisonment and fine; under Section 25(1)(1\u00adb)(a) of the Arms Act, 1959, 3 years Rigorous imprisonment and fine.<\/p>\n

Issue:<\/u><\/strong> 1. Whether the Investigating Officer in the present case had complied with the duties and responsibilities cast upon him by virtue of Chapter XII of Code of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Whether the court below, while acquitting all the other co \u00adaccused in connection\u00a0\u00a0 with\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 same crime, erred\u00a0\u00a0 in\u00a0\u00a0 not\u00a0\u00a0 returning\u00a0\u00a0 a\u00a0\u00a0 finding\u00a0\u00a0 qua\u00a0\u00a0 the instant appellant \u2013 a co \u00adaccused \u00ad in respect of a charged framed under Section 120\u00adB of the Indian Penal Code, 1860?<\/li>\n
  2. Whether the impugned\u00a0\u00a0 judgments\u00a0\u00a0 convicting\u00a0\u00a0 the appellant are sustainable in law or not?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Held:<\/u><\/strong> The court, while allowing the present appeal, set aside the judgment of the high court, while observing, as regards the first question, while relying on Common cause v. Union of India<\/em><\/strong> amongst others, it was observed by the court that, \u201cthat the Investigating Officer did not meet the obligations he was under, and numerous infirmities affected the conduct of the Investigation Officer calling into question, credibly, the investigation conducted by him or upon his directions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    As regards the second question, while relying on Geeta Devi Vs. State of U.P. & Ors., <\/em><\/strong>the court observed that, \u201cthe High Court, by virtue of being the First Appellate Court ought to reappreciated and\u00a0\u00a0 discussed\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 evidence\u00a0\u00a0 on\u00a0\u00a0 record.\u00a0\u00a0 Had that been done completely in the present case, the High Court would have returned a finding on Section 120\u00adB of IPC.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

    As regards the third question, the court observed, that, \u201cthe principle of determining\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 guilt\u00a0\u00a0 of\u00a0\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0 accused\u00a0\u00a0 in\u00a0\u00a0 a\u00a0\u00a0 case\u00a0\u00a0 involving circumstantial evidence is not that of probability but certainty and that all the evidence present should conclusively point towards only a singular hypothesis, which is the guilt of the accused.\u201d, <\/em>which was not done in the present case.<\/p>\n\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    MAGHAVENDRA PRATAP SINGH @ PANKAJ SINGH\u00a0 (APPELLANT) Vs\u00a0 STATE OF CHHATTISGARH (RESPONDENT) (CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 915 OF 2016) (2JB, B.R. GAVAI and SANJAY KAROL JJ., delivered by SANJAY KAROL J.)   Facts: The present appeal has been preferred against the Judgment passed by the\u00a0\u00a0 High\u00a0\u00a0 Court\u00a0\u00a0 of\u00a0\u00a0 Chhattisgarh\u00a0\u00a0 at Bilaspur\u00a0\u00a0 in\u00a0\u00a0 Criminal\u00a0\u00a0 Appeal of 2013, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judgement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}