Recently, the Supreme Court was called upon to examine a murder case that began with a shocking early-morning shooting and evolved into a complex trial marked by shifting testimonies and an unexpectedly fragile prosecution narrative. What appeared at first to be a straightforward accusation soon revealed layers of family hostility, delayed identification, and a recovery whose circumstances raised more questions than answers. The case drew the Court into a closer scrutiny of how criminal investigations must withstand judicial testing when key pillars of evidence begin to crumble.
Brief Facts:
The case arose from the early-morning shooting of a woman in a Jhajjar village, where three unknown men were said to have arrived in a small car and fired at her while she worked outside her home. Though the FIR named only strangers, it also mentioned her ongoing property dispute with her in-laws. Five days later, a supplementary statement introduced specific names, claiming that their involvement had come to light through the informant’s own inquiry. Acting on this later version, the police made arrests and reported the recovery of a country-made pistol from an unlocked iron box inside a house shared by several family members. At trial, the witnesses who were initially projected as identifying the attackers did not support the prosecution, turning the focus almost entirely on the recovery and the forensic report issues that later became central before the Supreme Court.
Contentions of the Appellant:
The counsel for the Appellant argued that his conviction was unjustified because the prosecution had no eyewitness support, as the persons claimed to have witnessed the incident did not identify him and denied their earlier statements. The Appellant maintained that the alleged recovery of the pistol was unreliable since it was taken from an unlocked box inside a room accessible to several family members, with no independent witness present. The counsel further submitted that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of custody of the weapon, making the forensic report unreliable. According to him, no motive was proved, the disclosure statement did not show that the recovered pistol was used in the offence, and no evidence connected him to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Contentions of the Respondents:
The counsel for the Respondent argued that the recovery of the pistol and cartridges from the appellant’s residence, followed by a forensic match with the bullets recovered from the body of the deceased, was sufficient to establish guilt. The counsel maintained that the possibility of other family members having access to the room did not diminish the value of recovery. The Respondent contended that the hostility of witnesses did not weaken the prosecution because scientific evidence formed a complete chain. It further asserted that independent witnesses were not necessary for a recovery made inside a house and that the courts below rightly relied on the consistent police testimony and forensic findings to uphold the conviction.
Observation of the Court:
The Supreme Court observed that the prosecution’s case collapsed once the two brothers of the deceased, projected as the main eyewitness and the first responder, denied witnessing the incident and stated that they reached the spot only after villagers informed them. This not only destroyed the identification of the Appellant but also shook the very basis of the FIR, especially when the alleged eyewitness stated that his signature had been taken on blank papers and that he had not narrated the version recorded by the police.
In this situation, the Court held that the prosecution could not rely solely on the alleged recovery of a pistol from an unlocked iron box inside a house accessible to several family members. Referring to the statutory limit under Section 27 of the Evidence Act,1872, the Court reiterated that “only that much information as is clearly connected with the fact discovered can be treated as relevant.” Since the disclosure did not state that the recovered pistol was used in the murder, the requirement of connecting the weapon “distinctly” to the crime remained unmet.
The Court also highlighted lapses in the chain of custody, noting that there was no record of when the weapon was taken out of the Malkhana before being sent to the forensic lab. As the Court emphasised, “mere indication of seal T2 as affixed is not sufficient to connect the recovery and deposit of the same recovered articles in FSL, particularly when no independent witness has been examined to prove recovery.”
Relying on decisions such as Jaikam Khan v. State of U.P.and Manjunath & Ors. v. State of Karnataka, the Court held that recoveries from places accessible to others cannot form the basis of conviction. With no eyewitness support, no motive proved, and no reliable link between the weapon and the offence, the Court concluded that the prosecution failed to prove that the recovery ‘distinctly relates’ to the commission of the offence.
The decision of the Court:
The Supreme Court set aside the conviction, holding that the prosecution had failed to prove the Appellant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, as neither the evidence on record nor the alleged recovery established any credible nexus with the offence.
Case Title: Govind versus State of Haryana
Case No.: Criminal Appeal No. 5641 of 2024
Coram: Hon’ble Mr Justice J.K. Maheshwari And Hon’ble Mr Justice Vijay Bishnoi
Counsel for the Appellant: AOR Apoorva Singhal, Sr Adv.Gagan Gupta, Adv.Tanuj Agarwal, Adv.R. Venkataraman, Adv.Alok Kumar, Adv. Jasbir Singh
Counsel for the Respondent: AOR Akshay Amritanshu, Adv. Drishti Rawal, Adv. Drishti Saraf, Adv. Sarthak Srivastava, Adv. Mayur Goyal.
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