Granting relief to two men who had spent 14 years in jail, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has overturned their conviction in a murder case noting that the trial court had relied on an FSL report from another case while pronouncing the judgment in 2012.
Calling the prosecution’s case riddled with “serious lapses”, the court noted that the FIR was written by an unidentified police official whose testimony was never recorded.
A Division Bench of Justices Vivek Agarwal and Avanindra Kumar Singh recently overturned the June 29, 2012, judgment of the Special Sessions Court, Damoh, which had convicted Tulsiram Rajpal and Harprasad under Sections 302, 302/34 and 450 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution’s case, on the night of August 25, 2009, Pyarelal Gadariya reported that the accused entered his house, abused his family and assaulted him. According to the prosecution, Tulsiram stabbed Pyarelal in the stomach while Harprasad and another accused restrained him. Pyarelal allegedly died after lodging the FIR. The prosecution examined 15 witnesses during the trial.
The HC found that the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report marked did not belong to the present case at all but was related to another prosecution, involving entirely different accused, weapons and injured persons.
Despite this, the report was exhibited, put to the accused during their examination under Section 313 CrPC, and relied upon by the trial court while recording the conviction.
“We are really surprised as to how this negligence was caused by the learned trial Court,” the Bench observed. “It is surprising that neither party at the time of final arguments or any stage of trial, argued this point; therefore, we find that the judgment of the trial Court was not written carefully and only on this ground alone judgment can be set aside,” it added.
‘In an unusual manner…’
The Bench noted that investigating officer (IO) Ashok Kumar Nanama admitted the FIR was not written in his own handwriting and, despite being given an opportunity, failed to identify the police officer who had actually written it. Calling this “a serious lapse,” the court observed, “Statement of the person who wrote the report has to be recorded before the trial Court but in an unusual manner some other police staff wrote FIR… and (it was) only signed by PW-14 (the IO).”
The HC held that “Non-filing of the said document… lends credibility to this argument of defence that Pyarelal did not lodge the FIR and had already died and perhaps, it was lodged by any member of his family but thumb impression of Pyarelal was obtained by some unknown police officer.”
The Bench also relied on the testimony of the doctor who stated that Pyarelal was “brought dead to hospital”.
‘Highly doubtful’
After assessing the evidence, the HC concluded that “it has become highly doubtful as to who recorded the FIR… whether it was lodged by the deceased Pyarelal or he had died before lodging of FIR… and some police staff who is unknown in this case, simply affixed the thumb impression of the deceased on FIR.”
It further held that the prosecution had failed to even establish that the thumb impression on the FIR actually belonged to the deceased, observing, “It is not proved that on FIR… (if) it is actually, the thumb impression of Pyarelal and none other person.”
Holding that these defects struck at the root of the prosecution case, the Bench ruled, “Conviction and sentence of the appellants cannot be maintained due to the serious lapses in investigation and prosecution evidence.”
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