Supreme Court gives benefit of doubt to 2 convicts, orders acquittal in 38-year-old murder case

The Supreme Court has acquitted two people, who were convicted in a 38-year-old murder case, after observing that both the trial court and the High Court failed to consider vital factors, which possibly hinted at false implication of the accused.

The order was recently passed by the Division Bench of Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Dipankar Datta, which noted lapses in the police investigation and said that it was not giving weightage to the perfunctory police investigation alone in concluding that the accused were entitled to benefit of doubt.
Stating that mere defects in the investigative process did not constitute grounds for acquittal, the Apex Court examined the evidence on record in detail, in order to ascertain if the prosecution’s allegations against the accused would stand.

It said there was a ‘fair’ degree of ‘uncertainty’ in the prosecution story and that the courts below appeared to have been ‘influenced’ primarily by the oral testimony of two witnesses, without considering the effect of other surrounding circumstances.

The top court of the country ruled that the charge of murder against the accused-appellants was not proved beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted them.
A petition was filed in the Apex Court against the Allahabad High Court verdict of 2014, which upheld the conviction of the accused by the trial court in 1986. 
The case dated back to September 5, 1985, when one Narayan was allegedly murdered by four people.
One of the accused died before the trial court took up the matter, while another passed away during pendency of trial in the High Court. In 2014, the High Court confirmed the conviction of the remaining two accused.

The Supreme Court noted that there was material to indicate a long-standing enmity between the deceased and the accused, which could have possibly led to false implication of the accused. 
It ruled that taking in view the facts and circumstances of the present case, the failure/neglect to seize the weapons of offence, non-examination of material witnesses, coupled with oral testimony of witnesses not being free from doubt, constituted a vital circumstance for granting the benefit of doubt to the accused appellants.
Ordering immediate release of the appellants, the top court of the country said that several key witnesses were not examined in the trial and there was some delay in examining the main prosecution witness. Non-examination of the investigating officer in the case was also a material lacuna, which created reasonable doubts in the prosecution’s case, it added.

Advocate Mukesh Giri appeared for the appellants, while Advocate Sanjay Kumar Tyagi represented the respondents.

(Case title: Munna Lal vs State of Uttar Pradesh)

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