Sunil Singh @ Buda Singh v. The State Of Bihar
Case brief
What is this about?
Kidnapping for ransom — Section 364A IPC — ransom demand as essential ingredient — demand not proved — Section 364A conviction set aside — Sections 365, 368, 120B IPC convictions upheld — ten days' confinement of victim PW-8 in appellant's house — informant PW-5 contradicted himself on ransom call to son-in-law Sanjeev Kumar — mobile phones not seized, call detail report not obtained — Sanjeev Kumar not examined (died 2008) — William Stephen v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2024) 5 SCC 258 applied — Patna High Court Criminal Appeal (DB) No.1393 of 2018 — Sessions Trial No. 848 of 2009, Muzaffarpur — sentence reduced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment for each of Sections 365 and 368 IPC, concurrent — appellant released having served the maximum term — reported ransom figure of Rs. 5 lakhs (newspaper report). Useful where the sole ransom evidence is a single inconsistent deposition paragraph unsupported by seizure of phones or CDR, while abduction-and-confinement counts survive on the victim's consistent testimony.