Appellate court must not lightly interfere with acquittal orders: Supreme Court
On 18 April 2023, Supreme Court of India, in Fedrick Cutinha v. State of Karnataka, the well-settled legal position that the appellate court should not lightly interfere with the order of acquittal recorded by the trial court unless there is gross perversity in the appreciation of the evidence.
The appellant was convicted by the High Court under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) with life imprisonment and under Section 326 read with Section 34 of the IPC for causing grievous injuries with imprisonment of five years.
The incident occurred on September 11, 1999, during the Lok Sabha and Assembly Elections in the District of Dakshina Kannada, Mangalore. Fedrick Cutinha was accused of assaulting one of the victims with an iron rod and kicking another victim. However, the High Court’s conviction of Cutinha was challenged on the grounds that he had not assaulted the deceased and his role was limited to kicking, hitting, and throwing chili powder.
The Supreme Court, in its judgment, observed that the trial court had acquitted all the accused persons in the case, including Cutinha, for offences under Sections 143, 147, 148, 323, 324, 307, 302 read with Section 149 of the IPC. The acquittal of nine of them had been affirmed by the High Court except for accused Nos.1 and 3, i.e., Krishnappa Naika @ Kittu Naika and Fedrick Cutinha.
The court further noted that the High Court had not assigned any good reasons for deviating from the findings returned by the trial court, and at the same time, it had not even stated that the findings so recorded by the trial court in acquitting all the accused, including Cutinha, were in any way perverse.
The court emphasized the well-settled legal position that the appellate court should not lightly interfere with the order of acquittal recorded by the trial court unless there is gross perversity in the appreciation of the evidence. In the present case, the Supreme Court held that the appellate court committed an error of law in recording the conviction of Cutinha merely for the reason that his presence and participation in the crime were proved by the evidence of one of the witnesses.
The court further observed that Cutinha’s role was limited to kicking, hitting, and throwing chili powder and that he had not assaulted the deceased. The court referred to the case of Darshan Singh & others vs. State of Punjab (2009) 16 SCC 290 and held that an accused has to be convicted on the basis of their individual acts and where an accused inflicted simple injuries with lathis etc., he is ordinarily not to be convicted for the offence of murder.
The Supreme Court also noted that Cutinha was not given an opportunity to be heard on the quantum of sentence before sentencing him to life imprisonment and imprisonment for five years for offences under Sections 302 and 326 of the IPC respectively read with Section 34 of the IPC. The court observed that the appellate court was obliged under law to hear the accused on the quantum of sentence in accordance with the mandate of sub-Section (2) of Section 235 of CrPC before pronouncing any sentence against them.
In view of the above facts and circumstances, the Supreme Court set aside the conviction of Cutinha and Krishnappa Naika @ Kittu Naika, who had already spent over 11 years in actual custody, and allowed the appeals.
Fedrick Cutinha v. State of Karnataka
