The High Court dismissed the State’s appeal against the acquittal of Harbhajan Singh and Gurbachan Singh for murder. The bench found no reliable witness testimony or corroborating evidence to overturn the trial court’s decision.
The appeal was dismissed with no orders as to costs; bail and surety bonds of the respondents were discharged.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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STATE ..... Appellant Through: Mr. Kewal Singh Ahuja, APP.
versus
HARBHAJAN SINGH & ORS. ..... Respondents
Through: None.
CORAM: JUSTICE S. MURALIDHAR JUSTICE VINOD GOEL
JUDGMENT % 01.08.2018
Dr. S. Muralidhar, J. :
from the roof of his house to the roof of the adjacent house belonging to one Badal (not examined). A-1 was a neighbour of the deceased. A-2 is his son, A-3 was his brother-in-law, and A-4 was his brother.
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more than half an hour after he was thrown there and he was there in an unconscious state till the time the PCR van arrived and removed him to the hospital. PW-5 was herself an adult. At the time of her examination in the year 1998, she was about 30 years old which meant that at the time of the incident, she was about 28 years old. Even the son of the deceased, i.e. Malik Singh, was about 15 years at the time of the incident. It is indeed strange that if there were three adults in the house, apart from the deceased, none of them made the efforts of calling any relative and seeking even the help of the neighbours to remove the deceased to a hospital, particularly considering that he was still alive at that point in time. There is absolutely no satisfactory explanation offered by the prosecution for this strange behaviour of close relatives.
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the testimonies of both these witnesses and it can only be said that they do not inspire this Court’s confidence. The Court is not assured from the circumstances and the evidence emerging on record that either of these witnesses is speaking the entire truth and can, therefore, be relied upon. Why Malik Singh himself was not examined is not clear. Further, the considerable period of time between when the deceased was brought to the hospital at around 8 pm and when these witnesses have spoken to the police at 11:45 pm has not been satisfactorily explained. Furthermore, no photographs of the scene of the crime are available which would enable to Court to appreciate whether it was indeed possible for four people to jump across from one terrace to another and thereafter throw the body of an adult man onto an adjacent terrace. This would have required a three-dimensional scaled site plan, even if there were no photographs. However, even the scaled site plan does not help in determining whether this was physically possible.
accordingly dismissed, but in the circumstances, with no orders as to costs. The bail and surety bonds furnished by Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 stand discharged.
S. MURALIDHAR, J.
VINOD GOEL, J.
AUGUST 01, 2018
rd
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3 issues framed by the court
Whether the trial Court committed legal error in disbelieving the eye witness testimony of the deceased's relatives and granting the accused the benefit of doubt.
Whether there were sufficient corroborating circumstances to sustain the prosecution's case against the accused given the lack of physical evidence.
Whether the High Court should interfere with the acquittal of the appellants in the murder charge.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
STATE
HARBHAJAN SINGH
GURBACHAN SINGH
S. MURALIDHAR
VINOD GOEL
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
