MP HC Upholds Three Men’s Life Sentences For Fatal Attack Near Pan Shop, Finds Related Eyewitnesses Credible Despite Minor Contradictions

On 18 May 2000, Tuntun alias Dinesh was assaulted near a pan shop at Rannod bus stand by a group of persons.

The post-mortem recorded multiple injuries caused by a hard and blunt object and identified head injuries as sufficient to cause death.

The appellants—Rishi Upadhyay, Awadh and Giltu alias Ajay—were tried in S.T. No. 207/2001 and convicted under Sections 148 and 302/149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), with sentences including life imprisonment.

On appeal, they challenged, among other matters, the reliability of the two eyewitnesses, who were related to the deceased, and relied on alleged inconsistencies, non-examination of another person said to have been present, enmity, and delay in sending the FIR to the Magistrate.

Sections 148 and 302/149 IPC were applied to the alleged armed assembly and the murder committed in prosecution of its common object.

The Court applied the principle that omissions and discrepancies warrant rejection of testimony only when material and sufficiently serious to affect its core or create substantial doubt; minor variations do not, by themselves, undermine credibility (*Mritunjoy Biswas v. Pranab*; *Shyamal Ghosh v. State of W.B.*).

The quality, not the number, of witnesses governs proof, and failure to examine another witness does not automatically justify an adverse inference (*Sarwan Singh v. State of Punjab*; *Khema v. State of U.P.*).

Related or interested testimony must be scrutinised with care, but is not to be rejected merely because of relationship or enmity if it is credible (*Raju v. State of T.N.*; *State of U.P. v. Kishanpal*).

A delay in forwarding the FIR under Section 157 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) is not, by itself, fatal absent demonstrated prejudice; the FIR’s prompt lodging and the overall evidence remain relevant to its reliability (*Jafel Biswas v. State of W.B.*).

The Court found that the post-mortem evidence established a homicidal death and that Banwarilal (PW1) and Pradeep Pandey (PW10) gave direct evidence identifying the assailants.

Their presence was considered natural given their proximity to the scene, and the FIR was lodged within approximately fifteen minutes of the incident, supporting their presence and reducing the likelihood of deliberation or fabrication.

The differences in the witnesses’ accounts concerning the number of assailants and the precise point of attack were treated as minor in context; the non-examination of Rajiv did not displace otherwise reliable eyewitness evidence.

The Court held that relationship and prior enmity called for careful scrutiny, not automatic rejection, and found no material contradiction sufficient to undermine the witnesses’ credibility.

Nor did the one-day delay in sending the FIR to the Magistrate, without demonstrated prejudice, invalidate the prosecution case.

As the appellants were on bail, their bail bonds were cancelled and they were directed to surrender before the trial court to serve the remaining sentence.