With “heavy heart”, SC acquits 6 murder accused as 71 of 87 witnesses turn hostile

As 71 of the total 87 witnesses — including the victim’s son — turned hostile, the Supreme Court acquitted six men accused of killing a man in Karnataka in 2011.

“With a heavy heart for the unsolved crime, but with absolutely no misgivings on the issue of lack of evidence, against the accused arrayed, we acquit the accused, reversing the judgment of the high court and restoring that of the trial court," a Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran said on Friday.

The Bench set aside the Karnataka High Court’s September 27, 2023, order which had rejected the trial court’s finding and convicted the six accused in the case.

It was alleged that a rivalry between two brothers resulted in the death of Ramkrishna, who worked for one of them before joining the other brother. A former employee along with his six associates allegedly conspired and killed Ramkrishna for shifting loyalties while he was walking with his son on April 28, 2011.

Writing the verdict for the Bench, Justice Chandran lamented the witnesses turning hostile and pulled up the police for the “overzealous" investigation in “total ignorance of basic tenets of criminal law", often reducing “prosecution to a mockery".

“Witnesses mount the box to disown prior statements, deny recoveries made, feign ignorance of aggravating circumstances spoken of during investigation and eye witnesses turn blind. Here is a classic case of 71 of the total 87 witnesses including eye witnesses, turning hostile, leaving the prosecution to stand on the testimony of the police and official witnesses," Justice Chandran wrote.

“Even a young boy, the crucial eyewitness, who saw his father being hacked to death, failed to identify the assailants," the SC said, adding the high court relied on the testimony of the police and official witnesses to convict the accused.

“We cannot but say that the high court has egregiously erred in convicting the accused on the evidence led and has jumped into presumptions and assumptions based on the story scripted by the prosecution without any legal evidence being available," the Bench said.

Noting that the prosecution utterly failed in proving the allegations against the accused and all the witnesses turned hostile during the trial, the Bench said, “Whatever be the reason behind such hostility, it cannot result in a conviction, based on the testimony of the investigating officers which is founded only on Section 161 CrPC statements and voluntary statements of accused; the former violative of Section 162 of the CrPC and the latter in breach of Sections 25 and 26 of the Evidence Act."

Ordering the release of the accused, if in custody and not required in any other case, the top court said, “Truth is always a chimera and the illusion surrounding it can only be removed by valid evidence led, either direct or indirect, and in the event of it being circumstantial, providing a chain of circumstances with connecting links leading to the conclusion of the guilt of the accused and only the guilt of the accused, without leaving any reasonable doubt for any hypothesis of innocence."

It said, “That is an occupational hazard, every judge should learn to live with, which cannot be a motivation to tread the path of righteousness and convict those accused somehow, even when there is a total absence of legal evidence; to enter into a purely moral conviction, total anathema to criminal jurisprudence."

India