Supreme Court acquits two murder convicts due to prosecution's weak evidence

The Supreme Court reviewed the conviction of two appellants for murder and arms-related offenses arising from a dispute over drainage blockage, ultimately acquitting them due to significant doubts in the prosecution's evidence and investigation.

Who it concerns: Appellants: Ashok Upadhyay and another; Respondent: The State of Bihar; Bench: Justice K. Vinod Chandran.

What the court decided

• The Court acquitted the two appellants.
• The Court found that the prosecution's evidence did not lead solely to the hypothesis of guilt and that a reasonable hypothesis of innocence existed.
• The Court noted that the eyewitnesses were primarily close relatives of the deceased and their testimony contained discrepancies.
• The Court observed that the investigation was ineffective, including the failure to recover weapons, prepare a scene map, or produce the firearm license.
• The Court highlighted the suspicious conduct of taking the dead body to the police station rather than a hospital, despite medical evidence suggesting the deceased could have survived for 3 to 6 hours.

Also in the document

• The judgment is marked as 'Non-Reportable'.
• The Court cited the precedent 'Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra' regarding the hypothesis of innocence.
• The Court noted that the eyewitnesses' accounts regarding the location of the body (police station vs. hospital) were contradictory.
• The Court observed that the prosecution's claim that one accused carried a 'licensed' weapon was suspicious and unsupported by the production of the license.