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Ajai alias Ajju etc. vs State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 127Decided 15 Feb 2023
Criminal Appeal Nos. 598-600 of 2013
B.R. Gavai · Vikram Nath

Background

In the early hours of 25 August 2007 at Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, Vijay Pal Singh, his wife, his son and his son-in-law were found with their throats cut in their home; his daughter Pinky survived with severe cuts and two amputated fingers. Pinky told the investigating officer that she had woken to see her uncle Braj Pal (who himself lodged the FIR), neighbour Mukesh, and Ravi and Ajai alias Ajju attacking her parents with swords and a gandasa, and that she had pretended to be dead. Out of fear, she and her sister initially told the gathered villagers, including the accused, that they had not recognised anyone. Weapons and bloodstained clothes, and the deceased son's mobile phone, were recovered at the accused's instance. The trial court convicted all four and awarded death sentences; the Allahabad High Court affirmed the convictions but commuted the sentences to life imprisonment. The accused appealed against conviction and the State appealed for restoration of the death penalty.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed all the appeals (Ajai's appeal abated as he had died). It held Pinky to be a fully reliable injured eyewitness whose injuries were undisputed and whose testimony survived cross-examination intact; there was no reason she would let the real killers go free to falsely implicate her own uncle and neighbours. Her initial silence about the assailants' names was "rightly and wisely" motivated by fear for her life while the killers were standing beside her, and the use of a dog squad was consistent with the names not yet having been disclosed. Non-examination of her sister and grandfather was immaterial since it is the quality, not quantity, of witnesses that counts, and the absence of a Section 164 CrPC statement does not weaken trial testimony. The claim that Ravi was not named in the initial police statement was found factually wrong. On sentence, the Court found the High Court had given sound and cogent reasons for commuting death to life and declined to interfere.

Lesson Learnt

The testimony of a single injured eyewitness can be enough to convict when it is natural, consistent and unshaken, and a witness's delay in naming attackers is excusable when caused by a genuine fear for their life. Courts weigh the quality of evidence over the number of witnesses.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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