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| The Karnataka High Court in Bengaluru. |
Today, the Apex Court of this
country gave a very pleasing and forward judgment. I agree with each and every
word of the Supreme Court in this case. I will simply state the facts in brief.
It is not necessary for us to go into the details. 6 persons were acquitted by
the Court of Sessions (Sections 302, 307, 144, 148 read with Section 149 of the
Indian Penal Code, 1860). The only significant evidence in this case was a
Dying Declaration. However, the Trial Court was not convinced by it and
acquitted the accused persons.
The State preferred an Appeal
before the High Court against this acquittal. The High Court convicted five of
the six persons on the basis of the dying declaration alone as it found the
dying declaration to be genuine and credible.
The only question before the honourable
Supreme Court was that whether the High Court was justified in upsetting the
view of the trial court on re-appreciation of the evidence?
The Supreme Court started by
citing Lord Russell in Sheo Swarup[1]:
“The High Court should and
will always give proper weight and consideration to such matters as:
(1) The views of the trial
Judge as to the credibility of the witnesses;
(2) The presumption of
innocence in favour of the accused, a presumption certainly not weakened by
the fact that he has been acquitted at his trial;
(3) The right of the
accused to the benefit of any doubt; and
(4) The slowness of an
appellate court in disturbing a finding of fact arrived at by a Judge who had
the advantage of seeing the witnesses.”
In Surajpal Singh v. State[2],
it was held that:
“The High Court has full power
to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal was founded, but it is
equally well settled that the presumption of innocence of the accused is
further reinforced by his acquittal by the trial court, and the findings of the
trial court which had the advantage of seeing the witnesses and hearing their
evidence can be reversed only for very substantial and compelling reasons.”
After citing these and many other
cases, the court iterated following well-established principles:
(i) There is presumption of
innocence in favour of an accused person and such presumption is strengthened
by the order of acquittal passed in his favour by the trial court,
(ii) The accused person is
entitled to the benefit of reasonable doubt when it deals with the merit of the
appeal against acquittal,
(iii) Though, the power of the
appellate court in considering the appeals against acquittal are as extensive
as its powers in appeals against convictions but the appellate court is
generally loath in disturbing the finding of fact recorded by the trial court. It is so because the trial court had an
advantage of seeing the demeanour of the witnesses. If the trial court takes a
reasonable view of the facts of the case, interference by the appellate court
with the judgment of acquittal is not justified.
(iv) Unless, the conclusions
reached by the trial court are palpably wrong or based on erroneous view of the
law or if such conclusions are allowed to stand, they are likely to result in
grave injustice, the reluctance on the
part of the appellate court in interfering with such conclusions is fully
justified, and
(v) Merely because the
appellate court on re-appreciation and re-evaluation of the evidence is
inclined to take a different view, interference with the judgment of acquittal
is not justified if the view taken by the trial court is a possible view. The evenly balanced views of the evidence
must not result in the interference by the appellate court in the judgment of
the trial court.
After laying down the
abovementioned principles, the court came to the facts of the present case and made
following observations about the dying declaration.
a. PW1 (Dr. Latha) did not
certify that Pradeep (the person who gave dying declaration) was in a fit
condition to make any statement.
b. The recording of Pradeep’s
statement by a constable as dictated by someone else (Sub-Inspector) in
this situation raises many questions. The Constable also admitted that he
did not record the statement in the words of the maker (Pradeep) but wrote
the statement as dictated by the Sub-Inspector.
c. A Doctor in the hospital where
Pradeep was being treated admitted over-writing with regard to the time
written on the Dying Declaration.
d. The trial court observed that
the names of accused Gunda (A-3) and Swamy (A-5) appear to have been inserted
in different ink later on.
e. The trial court was of the
view that the Dying Declaration did not inspire confidence and the credibility
of the Dying Declaration has not been established to the satisfaction of the
court.
The Supreme Court concluded by
saying that sanctity is attached to a dying declaration because it comes from
the mouth of a dying person. If the
dying declaration is recorded not directly from the actual words of the maker
but as dictated by somebody else, this by itself creates a lot
of suspicion about credibility of such statement and the prosecution has to
clear the same to the satisfaction of the court.
Thus, the Supreme Court finally
held that, “it cannot be said that the view taken by the trial court on the
basis of evidence on record was not a possible view. The accused were entitled
to the benefit of doubt which was rightly given to them by the trial court.”
The High Court while upsetting
the judgment of acquittal did not keep in view the well-established principles
in hearing the appeal from the judgment of acquittal. Hence, the appeals were
allowed and the impugned judgment of the High Court was set aside.
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