Abdul Wahid v. The State of Rajasthan
Background
In June 1988 in Kota, Rajasthan, a group of men allegedly attacked Ahsan Ali with knives and a sword over a pre-existing enmity while he was returning home at night, and he later died of his injuries. The trial court convicted Abdul Wahid, Babu, and Abdul Shakur (the other named accused having died before or during trial) under Sections 302/148 or 302/149 IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment; the Rajasthan High Court upheld the convictions with a minor modification to the charging section. The convicted men appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found the prosecution's evidence riddled with serious inconsistencies and improbabilities: the key eyewitness's conduct (hiding rather than seeking help from a police station only 200 metres away, without raising any alarm) was "highly unusual," his testimony contradicted itself on basic facts, and he was shown to be a known "stock witness" for the police in unrelated cases. A second witness's account of events was similarly implausible and self-contradictory. The investigation itself had major gaps: the motorcycle involved was never seized despite an expected trail of blood, weapons allegedly recovered were never produced in court or tested for bloodstains, seizure witnesses turned hostile, and no forensic examination was done on the accused's clothing. The claimed crowd of 100-150 onlookers was contradicted by police testimony that no one was present when they arrived minutes after the incident. Given these compounding doubts and the absence of any credible evidence connecting the accused to the killing, the Court held the appellants were entitled to the benefit of doubt, set aside both the trial court's and High Court's judgments, and acquitted them.
Lesson Learnt
A murder conviction cannot be sustained where the prosecution's eyewitness testimony is internally contradictory and implausible, and the police investigation has fundamental gaps (unseized vehicles, untested weapons, no forensic corroboration): the cumulative effect of such doubts entitles an accused to acquittal even after decades of litigation.