Disclaimer: This has been reported after the availability of the order of the Court and not on media reports so as to give an accurate report to our readers.
Allahabad High Court: In a criminal appeal of 1984, assailing the conviction under Section 34 and 302 of Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”), the Division Bench of Chandra Dhari Singh* and Sanjiv Kumar, JJ., allowed the appeal, holding that the witness evidence was unreliable and did not prove the charges ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, thereby acquitting the convicts of all charges.
Background
In 1982, the informant lodged an FIR alleging that him and his brother (“the deceased”) were returning home after fetching water when the three convicts, armed with a gun, spear, and an axe, appeared in front of them. The accused persons sought to take revenge for a previous enmity and engaged in a physical altercation, which led to the deceased being shot dead by one of them.
Aggrieved, the informant filed an FIR against the convicts under Section 302 of the IPC. Thereafter, the Trial Court convicted them under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC. Hence, the present appeal was filed by two of the convicts as one remained absconding.
Issue & Analysis
Whether the conviction, based on the testimonies of the witnesses, which were riddled with irreconcilable contradictions and improbabilities, could be sustained in law?
At the outset, the Court observed that the cross-examination of the informant suggested that the FIR was not prepared immediately after the incident, as claimed by the informant. The Court opined that the FIR could have been prepared, after the investigation had commenced, in the aftermath of the incident.
Regarding the medical evidence, the Court noted that there was discrepancy in the version given by the witnesses as the punctured wound placement made it improbable that the injury was caused in the alleged position.
The Court also observed that cross-examination of the informant suggested that there was a possibility that the deceased was murdered by a different group of people. These persons had been convicted in a murder case of another brother of the informant, in which the deceased was a witness.
The Court noted that the informant inherited the property of the deceased after his death, who had only a daughter. However, while he was alive, the deceased was inclined to give his property to his daughter. Thus, the informant could be an ‘interested witness’, and this possibility could not be ruled out, especially when the motive of the convicts remained unproven.
Placing reliance on Vadivelu Thevar v. State of Madras, 1957 SCC OnLine SC 13, wherein the Supreme Court classified witness testimonies into three categories, i.e., wholly reliable, wholly unreliable, and neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable, the Court reiterated that a testimony of a single, but ‘wholly reliable’ witness can be basis for conviction. The testimony of a wholly unreliable witness had to be discarded. For the last category, the Court must scrutinise corroboration of all the material on record before placing reliance on such witnesses.
Accordingly, the Court held that after meticulous dissection of the evidence of the two key witnesses and other evidences, their testimonies were fundamentally untrustworthy due to:
(i) Contradiction in the genesis of occurrence;
(ii) Conduct unbecoming of an eye-witnesses;
(iii) Omission in the FIR; and
(iv) Inherent improbabilities
The Court noted that, “when the genesis and the manner of the incident is doubtful, the appellants cannot be convicted” as held by the Supreme Court in Pankaj v. State of Rajasthan, (2016) 16 SCC 192. The Court further referred to Kannaiya v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2270, wherein the Supreme Court held that conflicting versions cannot co-exist within a credible narrative.
Thereafter, the Court discussed the standard of proof in criminal cases. The Court stated that the statutory requirement under Section 3 of the Evidence Act, 1872 (“Evidence Act”), is only of “preponderance of probability”. Section 3 does not mandate “proof beyond reasonable doubt”. However, the Court further said that the degree of proof required in a criminal case in India is higher than “preponderance of probability” and has been insisted upon by the Indian Courts.
The Court noted, that even in the common law of England, the criminal courts insist for a higher degree of proof for criminal cases. Similar to the Evidence Act in India, the counterpart in England also lacks statutory provision for ‘any higher degree of proof to decide a criminal case’. However, through judicial precedents, the concept of “proof beyond reasonable doubt” evolved, and similarly, have been insisted upon by the Indian courts.
The Court then delved into the principle of ‘reasonable doubt’, therein, the Court referred the Supreme Court judgment in Goverdhan v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2025) 3 SCC 378. In this case, the Supreme Court held that “a reasonable doubt is not an imaginary, trivial or a merely possible doubt, but a fair doubt based upon reason and common sense”.
The Court further referred to the judgment of Jitendra Kumar Mishra v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2024) 2 SCC 666, wherein, the Supreme Court held that the Appellate Court should ordinarily refrain from interfering with conviction recorded by the Trial Courts. However, the Appellate Court should not refrain from giving the benefit of doubt to the accused, in cases, where charges are not proved beyond reasonable doubt and where an alternative view is reasonably possible.
Thus, the Court held that the testimonies of the witnesses did not inspire confidence and the prosecution had failed to prove their case, beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Court noted that the present criminal appeal has been pending for nearly 40 years now while the convict herein was on bail, and was approximately 100 years old. The Court reiterated that the extraordinary delay in disposal of criminal appeals, coupled with the advanced age of the accused and long periods of liberty on bail, constitute relevant and weighty considerations while moulding relief.
“Justice is not an abstraction divorced from human conditions. The law cannot be oblivious to the reality that advancing age brings with its physical fragility, dependence and a narrowing horizon of life. When a person stands before the Court at the twilight of existence, the insistence on penal consequences, after decades of procedural delay, risks transforming justice into a ritual divorced from the purpose it intends.”
The Court remarked that delay of such magnitude is not a mere administrative lapse, rather it becomes a substantive factor affecting fairness. The anxiety, uncertainty and social consequences suffered over decades cannot be ignored while assessing what justice now demands.
The Court said that a criminal proceeding is a mechanism to ensure accountability, but the prolonged pendency gives it a punitive character. Thus, it is fair for courts to adopt a more humane approach while granting relief in such cases. The Court stated that the convicts have been living ‘under the weight of accusation’ for four decades. The Court further stated that, even though, the conviction was being set aside for lack of proof beyond reasonable doubt, other factors play a vital role in moulding the relief.
Hence, the appeal was allowed, and the convicts were acquitted of all charges.
[Satti Din v. State of UP, 2026 SCC OnLine All 189, decided on 21-01-2026]
*Judgment by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Senior Advocate Anil Srivastava, Ram Bahadur, Ramesh Prajapati and S.K. Srivastava, Advocates
For the respondent: Additional Government Advocate S.N. Tiwari, D.G.A.
Buy Penal Code, 1860 HERE
