Rajasthan HC Discharges Four Men From Murder Charge As Medical Opinion Did Not Link Four Superficial Injuries To Death, While Other Charges Stand.

Respondent No. 2 alleged that the appellants assaulted his son Raju on 2 May 2015, abused him by reference to caste, and later threw him onto the road; Raju was found dead the following morning.

The post-mortem recorded three abrasions and one bruise, while the viscera report detected no poison.

After an earlier charge order was set aside and the matter remanded for reconsideration in light of the FSL report, the Special Judge again framed charges, including under Section 302 IPC. The appellants challenged that order under Section 14-A(2) of the SC/ST Act.

The Court considered Section 302 IPC and the principle that a murder charge requires material disclosing, at least prima facie, that the death was homicidal and attributable to a culpable act of the accused; the fact of death and an allegation of assault alone do not establish that connection.

At the charge stage, the evidence is not assessed as at trial, but the court must judicially consider the investigation material; suspicion, however strong, cannot replace legally sustainable material.

The Court also considered the other IPC and SC/ST Act charges framed by the trial court, but cited no separate precedent in its reasoning.

The Court found that the injuries—three abrasions and one bruise—did not prima facie show injuries sufficiently grave to establish that death resulted from the alleged assault. The viscera report excluded poison but did not establish another cause of death, and the medical expert had not attributed death to the recorded injuries.

Considering these matters cumulatively, the Court held that the necessary prima facie nexus between the alleged acts and the death was absent, so the Section 302 charge could not rest on the allegation of assault alone. The Court treated the remaining alleged offences separately and found no basis to interfere with those charges.

The challenge to the remaining charges was rejected; the trial court was directed to pass a fresh order on charge excluding Section 302 IPC and proceed in accordance with law.