When Justice Demands Vigilance, Convictions Built on Shaky Evidence Must Fall: Calcutta High Court Acquits Two in Murder Case

“Silence in FIR, Dubious Dying Declaration and a Flawed Investigation Cannot Sustain Conviction”, In a striking reaffirmation of criminal jurisprudence, the Calcutta High Court set aside the conviction of two men sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC. Delivering the judgment, Justices Rajarshi Bharadwaj and Apurba Sinha Ray observed that the prosecution’s narrative crumbled under the weight of glaring omissions, procedural lapses, and uncorroborated evidence. The Court declared, “Prosecution has failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt and the benefit of doubt must necessarily go to the accused.”

The judgment, hailed for its meticulous scrutiny of evidence, underscores the judiciary’s duty to ensure no innocent suffers due to a botched investigation or embellished prosecution narrative.

The prosecution story was that on 5th May 2009, Nasir Ansari was brutally assaulted with sharp and blunt weapons by the appellants and a co-accused Mahendra Chowdhury, allegedly over refusal to pay extortion money. According to Nasir’s brother Lalbabu (PW1), the victim, while being transported to hospital, allegedly named his assailants in an oral dying declaration.

The trial court convicted the appellants, sentencing them to life imprisonment. Contesting this, the appellants challenged the conviction citing “fabricated dying declaration”, “absence of independent witnesses”, and “glaring irregularities in investigation”, leading to the High Court’s intervention.

The central questions before the High Court revolved around the credibility of the oral dying declaration, authenticity of prosecution witnesses, validity of recovery of weapon, and fairness of trial procedure, particularly the Section 313 CrPC examination.

The Court laid down a scathing observation, “When a dying declaration is neither reflected in the FIR nor corroborated by hospital records, its evidentiary value collapses under judicial scrutiny.”

The judgment noted that the FIR was conspicuously silent about any dying declaration. The inquest report equally omitted it. Most tellingly, the hospital records—routinely containing details of who brought the injured person and the history of the assault—were absent.

“We find no record showing PW1 accompanied the deceased to the hospital, nor any record that Nasir named his assailants. Such omissions cast a long shadow on the prosecution’s story,” the Court firmly held.

Court Disbelieves Eyewitness Testimony Sourced Solely from Victim’s Locality

Turning to the direct witnesses PW2 and PW3, the High Court remarked, “No credible explanation is given why no witnesses from the locality of the crime scene, Circus More, were examined, even though it is a crowded public place.”

The Court highlighted the anomaly of relying solely on individuals from the deceased’s residential area—Mominpara—despite the crime occurring elsewhere. “Justice demands independent corroboration. The deliberate exclusion of local witnesses damages the reliability of prosecution’s case,” the judgment read.

Court Criticizes Dubious Weapon Recovery from Public Place

The High Court condemned the mode of recovery of the alleged weapon, terming it “procedurally hollow and legally untenable.”

Citing the Supreme Court’s recent authoritative decisions in Nikhil Chandra Mondal and Manjunath, the Court observed, “Recovery of a weapon from an open public drain, in absence of local witnesses, renders it inadmissible as credible evidence under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act.”

The Court warned against blind reliance on recoveries orchestrated in convenient circumstances, noting, “Prosecution’s duty is to eliminate doubt, not to deepen it.”

Court Denounces Flawed Examination under Section 313 CrPC

With unequivocal clarity, the Court held, “A trial cannot be reduced to a ritual where the accused is denied a meaningful opportunity to explain incriminating circumstances.”

Highlighting that incriminating evidence was “clubbed into omnibus questions” during Section 313 CrPC examination, the Court cited precedents including Naval Kishore Singh and Tara Singh to affirm that such flawed procedure vitiates the trial itself.

The judgment emphasized, “Fairness in trial is a constitutional mandate; when the accused is denied a fair opportunity, the conviction cannot stand.”

Cumulative Lapses Beyond Salvage

Weighing the collective irregularities, the Bench concluded, “A prosecution riddled with missing records, non-examination of material witnesses, and unsupported allegations fails to cross the threshold of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”

The Court pointedly criticized the trial court’s speculative conclusion, stating, “Mere conjecture that the assault was due to refusal to pay extortion money, unsupported by independent evidence, cannot uphold a conviction under Section 302 IPC.”

Allowing the appeals, the Calcutta High Court observed:
“The entire prosecution structure collapses under its own contradictions. Justice must prevail over suspicion; conviction based on incomplete and unconvincing evidence is a miscarriage of justice.”

Accordingly, the Court set aside the conviction and sentence, acquitted the appellants, and ordered their immediate release unless required in other cases.

This verdict underscores a cardinal principle of criminal law: Conviction must rest on unshakeable, credible evidence, not on the scaffolding of assumptions, interested testimony, or flawed investigation.

The judgment is a reminder that the criminal justice system remains duty-bound to protect not only the society from criminals but also individuals from wrongful conviction. The High Court’s closing words resonate as a timeless caution:
“Doubt arising from shoddy investigation must inure to the benefit of the accused. Injustice to one innocent person is an injustice to the entire system of law.”

Date of Decision: 17th July 2025