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Bikash Bora & Ors. v. The State of Assam

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 141Decided 5 Feb 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 164 of 2011
Justice A.M. Khanwilkar · Justice K.M. Joseph

Background

Four tea-estate watchmen (chowkidars) were convicted of murdering a man they suspected of stealing tea bushes, based on circumstantial evidence: a witness heard a commotion, found the victim lying injured near the accused, and a lathi (stick) used in the assault was later recovered from one accused's house. The trial court and Gauhati High Court concurrently convicted all four under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC (murder with common intention), relying on a chain of nine circumstances. Three of the four appellants argued there was no evidence they personally struck the fatal blows or shared any common intention to kill, while the fourth did not seriously dispute the case against him given the weapon was recovered from his home.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that mere presence at the scene is not enough to convict under Section 34 IPC, which requires proof of a shared common intention, and since there was no evidence that three of the appellants (Bikash Bora, Atul Bora, and Haren Rautia) wielded weapons or participated in inflicting the fatal injuries, their convictions could not stand, and they were acquitted by giving them the benefit of the doubt. However, the circumstantial evidence against the fourth appellant, Dipankar Bora, including recovery of the lathi from his house and medical evidence that the fatal injuries matched that weapon, was found sufficient, and his conviction for murder under Section 302 IPC was upheld. The Court also declined to downgrade his offence to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, since the deceased was unarmed and could not have provoked a response warranting such severe, fatal blows.

Lesson Learnt

Being present at a crime scene alongside others who are convicted does not by itself make a person criminally liable: the prosecution must specifically prove that each accused shared the common intention to commit the crime or personally participated in the fatal act, not merely that they were there.

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

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