Badru Ram & Ors. v. State of Rajasthan
Background
Four persons (Badru Ram and three others) were convicted of murdering two brothers, Kamal Kumar and Om Prakash, in a nighttime assault on 11 November 1999 arising out of a land dispute. The trial court had convicted ten accused, but the High Court acquitted six of them because the chief witness had not named them in his initial complaint, while upholding the conviction of the four appellants based on the testimony of two injured eyewitnesses. The four convicted men appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing they too should be acquitted on the same reasoning used for the other six, or that their offence should be downgraded to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the two injured eyewitnesses, the surviving brother and his nephew, gave consistent, credible testimony naming the appellants, and that this testimony was not weakened by cross-examination. The Court rejected the "doctrine of parity" argument, clarifying that the other six accused were acquitted only because they were never named in the original complaint, not because the eyewitness evidence was weak, so there was no inconsistency in convicting these four while acquitting the others. The Court also rejected the argument that the killing should be treated as culpable homicide due to "sudden provocation," finding the attack was a sustained, multi-weapon assault with no evidence of provocation. The convictions and sentences were affirmed and the appeal was dismissed.
Lesson Learnt
An appellate court will uphold a conviction resting on consistent eyewitness testimony even if other co-accused were acquitted for a separate, case-specific reason (such as not being named in the original complaint): parity between co-accused does not automatically follow unless the underlying reasoning for acquittal applies equally to all.