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News18
02-07-2025
- News18
'Evidence Of Last Seen Together Not Enough': SC Sets Aside Conviction Of Man For Killing Wife's Cousin
Last Updated: A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra pointed out that in the case at hand, the only evidence against the appellant is of 'last seen together' The Supreme Court has acquitted a man in a case of killing his wife's cousin in 2016, finding that the nature of circumstantial evidence available against him, though raising doubt that he may have committed the murder, was not so conclusive that he could be convicted only on the basis of evidence on 'last seen together'. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra pointed out that in the case at hand, the only evidence against the appellant is of 'last seen together'. 'The evidence of motive does not satisfy us to be an adverse circumstance against the appellant, inasmuch as if the appellant had any doubt about his wife's chastity, he would have caused injury or harm to his wife rather than to the wife's cousin with whom he had no animosity. Moreover, the so-called weapon of the offence, i.e. the stone, has not been recovered at his instance, nor is there any memorandum statement of the appellant," the bench said. The bench emphasised that this Court, in Kanhaiya Lal vs. State of Rajasthan (2014), has held that evidence on 'last seen together' is a weak piece of evidence, and conviction only on the basis of 'last seen together', without there being any other corroborative evidence against the accused, is not sufficient to convict the accused for an offence under Section 302 IPC. Appellant Padman Bibhar challenged the validity of the judgment and order of April 15, 2024, passed by the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack, which had affirmed the conviction and sentence imposed by the Trial Court, convicting him for committing the offences under Sections 302 and 201 of IPC, and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 10,000, and imprisonment for two years and to pay a fine of Rs 5,000, respectively, for each of the offences. The prosecution case was that at about 11 a.m. on April 4, 2016, the informant's son, Akash Garadia, along with Budhadeba Garadia and Susanta Kusulia and the appellant/accused, had been to the river nearby the village to take bath. From there, the appellant/accused and the deceased went to the cashew field to collect cashews. The appellant/accused and the deceased did not return for a long time; however, the two others returned to the village. The informant, Kalia Garadia, inquired about the whereabouts of his son from the two others, who informed him that they had asked the appellant/accused about the deceased, to which he replied that the deceased would never return and if they disclosed this fact to the co-villagers, he would kill them. On the next day, i.e. April 5, 2016, at about 6:00 a.m., the informant went to the riverside in search of his son and found his dead body floating in the river. He lodged the FIR alleging that the appellant/accused had killed his son and thrown his dead body in the river. The Trial Court held the appellant-accused guilty, finding that the evidence on 'last seen together' and recovery of the weapon, together with motive, were the circumstances that completed the chain of circumstantial evidence and were sufficient to hold the appellant/accused guilty of the commission of murder and causing disappearance of evidence. The conviction and sentence imposed by the Trial Court were affirmed by the High Court. Considering the appeal, the bench said it was settled law that in a case based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution is obliged to prove each circumstance, taken cumulatively, to form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that within all human probabilities, the crime was committed by the accused and none else. Further, the facts so proved should unerringly point towards the guilt of the accused. The bench pointed out that this Court, in Ramanand vs. State of Himachal Pradesh (1981), had held that 'perfect proof is seldom to be had in this imperfect world and absolute certainty is a myth'. Further, this Court, in a celebrated judgment in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda vs. State of Maharashtra (1984), had set down the golden rules in cases based on circumstantial evidence which is to be proved by the prosecution. Examining the evidence of prosecution witnesses, the bench noted it emerged that when they were taking bath, other villagers were also present at the bathing ghat, and that the appellant and the deceased had gone to collect cashew nuts. However, when the appellant was inquired about the whereabouts of the deceased and was confronted, he did not admit guilt but rather accompanied the informant in search of the deceased near the river and cashew jungle. This conduct of the appellant suggests that he did not run away from the village nor admit guilt, as probably he had nothing to hide, the court said. The witness of last seen stated that he saw the appellant and deceased going towards village Madhapadar at around 12 noon, and after some time, he saw the appellant returning alone. When asked about the deceased, the appellant did not reply. After asking three to four times, he replied that he had gone to a nearby village for some work, and thereafter, the appellant hurriedly took his bath and went away. This witness claimed the appellant's wife was a cousin of the deceased. After marriage, the appellant had gone to Kerala and did not return. When his wife fell ill, she was taken to the hospital by her relatives. The appellant returned from Kerala and suspected his wife's illicit relations with a co-villager and, due to anger, he had killed Akash. However, in cross-examination, he admitted that the police had not recorded his statement under Section 161 Cr.P.C. Therefore, this fact about motive was narrated by him for the first time in court; hence, the same cannot be relied upon. Interestingly, the father of the deceased has not stated anything about the motive in his examination-in-chief. According to the complainant, the appellant is his nephew, being the son of his brother-in-law. Thus, the appellant and the complainant were close relatives, the bench noted. The court also found that it was the case of the prosecution that the appellant neither admitted guilt nor got the weapon or dead body recovered at his instance. Even the chemical examination report was inconclusive, although human blood was found on the shirt and on the stone, but the blood group was not matched. The present is a case where, except for the evidence of 'last seen together', there is no other incriminating material against the appellant, the bench noted. The court relied upon Sujit Biswas vs. State of Assam (2013), which stated that suspicion, howsoever strong, cannot substitute proof, and conviction is not permissible only on the basis of suspicion. It thus set aside the impugned conviction and sentence imposed by the High Court and the Trial Court and acquitted the appellant. About the Author Sanya Talwar Sanya Talwar, Editor at Lawbeat, has been heading the organisation since its inception. After practising in courts for over four years, she discovered her affinity for legal journalism. She has worked More Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 02, 2025, 21:30 IST News india 'Evidence Of Last Seen Together Not Enough': SC Sets Aside Conviction Of Man For Killing Wife's Cousin
Time of India
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Public servant insulting SC community member not ‘official duty', nod not need for prosecution: Kerala high court
Kochi: Allegations of cheating, fabrication of records, misappropriation, or insulting and intimidating a person belonging to a scheduled caste using caste-based slurs do not constitute acts done in the discharge of official duty, and therefore, no sanction under Section 197 of the CrPC is required to prosecute a public servant in such cases, Kerala high court has A Badharudeen made the ruling while dismissing a petition filed by two officials of the Ettumanoor block panchayat challenging the framing of charges by the trial court. The case pertains to allegations that they insulted a female colleague belonging to the scheduled caste by calling her by her caste name with the intention of humiliating her in public view. According to the complaint filed by the de facto complainant, the petitioners — V T Jinu and M S Vijayan — used abusive caste-based slurs against her and fabricated documents to falsely show that she had misappropriated funds, which ultimately led to her petitioners argued that, as public servants at the time of the alleged incident, the prosecution was required to obtain prior sanction under Section 197 of the CrPC, which had not been secured, thereby rendering the proceedings invalid. However, the prosecution countered that since the alleged acts were unrelated to their official duties, no such sanction was examining the records, the single bench held that the trial court had not erred in framing the charges. The court further relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in Indira Devi vs State of Rajasthan, which clarified that allegations involving cheating, fabrication of records, or misappropriation by public officials cannot be considered acts done in the discharge of their official duties and hence, do not require prior sanction for prosecution.
Indian Express
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
How a landowner challenged Rajasthan's land ceiling law to protect his 175 acres — and lost
About 70 km from Jodhpur, in Pali district's Deoli village, was Sajjan Singh's 175 acres of agricultural land. In 1964, he was a khatedar tenant, a landholder who paid a nominal annual rent to the Rajasthan government when the state introduced a new law that capped land holdings. The land ceiling meant that a family of five could not own more than 25 acres. Singh had to challenge the Rajasthan Tenancy Act and the crucial Seventeenth constitutional Amendment that backed such ceilings and kept them out of the purview of judicial review. The case — Sajjan Singh v State of Rajasthan raised a question that we continue to debate even in the 75th year of the Constitution — what is the extent of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution and the role of the judiciary to guard against encroachment of fundamental rights. On October 30, 1964, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court reaffirmed its view that Parliament has the power to amend any part of the Constitution, and upheld the Amendment and the consequent laws. 'It appears unreasonable to suggest that the Constitution-makers wanted to provide that fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution should never be touched by way of Amendment,' then Chief Justice PB Gajendragadkar wrote. Singh and the sanctity of fundamental rights were on the losing side. However, two judges — Justices R Mudholkar and M Hidayatullah — expressed doubts on Parliament's power to abrogate rights. The dissenting view would in later cases shape the course of constitutional history. The case Since the Constitution came into force in 1950, the Jawaharlal Nehru government's land and agrarian reforms laws were met with resistance from the Supreme Court on the grounds that they breached fundamental rights. In the First Amendment itself, Parliament had introduced Articles 31A and 31B, the first provision stated that no land acquisition law would be deemed void because it violated any of the fundamental rights. In 1954, Parliament brought in the Fourth Constitutional Amendment, expanding Article 31A, which then stated that laws providing for 'the acquisition by the State of any estate or of any rights therein or the extinguishment or modification of any such rights' cannot be deemed void because they were inconsistent with Articles 14 (the right to equality), 19 (rights from speech to practicing trade) or 31 (right to property, which was later repealed and replaced by Article 300A in 1978). In the Seventeenth Amendment, Parliament sought to expand the definition of estate to include any jagir, inam or muafi (in the States of Madras and Kerala, any janmam right) and any land held under ryotwari settlement. The widening of the definition was to undo the effect of the SC striking down the Kerala land ceiling law in 1961 on the grounds that the term 'estate' did not include the lands of ryotwari pattadars. On May 27, 1964, a special session of Parliament was called in to introduce the crucial Seventeenth Amendment. The Amendment was passed with 318 ayes to 31 noes, and the Lok Sabha was adjourned. Incidentally, just minutes later, it was announced that Nehru was dead. Sajjan Singh's son, Virendra Singh. Special Arrangement Sajjan Singh, an influential Rajput landowner born in 1921, was the first to move the Supreme Court. His father, Thakur Madho Singh, was the aide-de-camp (a personal assistant of sorts) to Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur and was granted the thikana (estate) of Deoli in Pali. The 175 acres included land in Tikhi village, Jalore, and Deoli in Pali. In search of a male heir, Sajjan Singh had married thrice and in his twilight years, he had adopted his nephew Virendra Singh. Associated with the Swatantra Party and the Congress, Virendra Singh was a pradhan, a zila pramukh and in 1972, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Pali's Sumerpur. He died in an accident in 1987. In the 1951 Sankari Prasad case, the Supreme Court had upheld the First Amendment and said that there was a clear demarcation between ordinary law, which is made in exercise of legislative power, and constitutional law, which is made in exercise of constituent power. Therefore, a constitutional amendment had to be treated differently even if it violated fundamental rights. Sajjan Singh's case was an opportunity for the Supreme Court to relook at Sankari Prasad's case. The First Amendment, after all, was brought in by the provisional Parliament, which at that time had no Rajya Sabha and therefore did not follow the due procedure prescribed by Article 368 for amending the Constitution. Chief Justice Gajendragadkar and two other judges disagreed that Sankari Prasad must be reconsidered. 'In the present case, if the arguments urged by the petitioners were to prevail, it would lead to the inevitable consequence that the Amendments made in the Constitution both in 1951 and 1955 would be rendered invalid and a large number of decisions dealing with the validity of the Acts included in the Ninth Schedule which have been pronounced by different High Courts ever since the decision of this court in Sankari Prasad's case was declared, would also be exposed to serious jeopardy,' the majority opinion said. However, two judges opened a window. Justice Hidayatullah's opinion, even while upholding the Amendment, wondered how far Parliament could go. 'The Constitution gives so many assurances in Part III (that deals with fundamental rights) that it would be difficult to think that they were the playthings of a special majority.' Justice Mudholkar, in his opinion, wrote about harmonising a parliamentarian's duty of allegiance to the Constitution with the power to make an amendment to it. He also cited a judgment of the Pakistan Supreme Court, which did not allow its President to make 'an alteration in a fundamental feature of the Constitution'. Although Sajjan Singh lost the case that bears his name, it paved the way to the landmark 1973 Kesavananda Bharati ruling that established the 'basic structure' test to balance Parliament's power to amend the Constitution. The difference of opinion among the five judges in Sajjan Singh's case echoes even today. Just last month, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar said Parliament is supreme and that elected representatives are the final arbiters of the Constitution. He was speaking in the context of the April 8 Supreme Court ruling that set timelines for Governors and the President to grant assent to Bills. In the past, Dhankhar and several other legal scholars have criticised the Supreme Court for striking down the constitutional Amendment setting up the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) and have argued that the judiciary ought to have recognised Parliament's power to amend the Constitution. Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, a 'qualified critic' of the basic structure doctrine, says 'a constant creative tension' between Parliament and the judiciary is good for democracy. A later part of the series will focus on the 1967 case, I C Golaknath v State of Punjab, that reversed the Sajjan Singh ruling. The debate on the right to property, perhaps the most contested fundamental right, was settled only in 1973, with the Kesavananda ruling. But the larger questions continue. 'No generation has a monopoly on wisdom. As long as the critique is well articulated, these are issues to be revisited in every generation,' Ramachandran says. 1964 Sajjan Singh v State of Rajasthan The case: Sajjan Singh, an influential Rajput landowner from Rajasthan, challenged the state's land ceiling law to protect his 175 acres of agricultural land. He also challenged the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, brought in 1964, which protected land ceiling laws from judicial scrutiny on the grounds that it violated fundamental rights. A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court reaffirmed its view that Parliament has the power to amend any part of the Constitution and upheld the Amendment and the consequent laws. Relevance today: The central question that divided judges 3:2 in Sajjan Singh's case remains relevant even today — what is the extent of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution and the role of the judiciary to guard against encroachment of fundamental rights.
