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Boini Mahipal & Anr. vs. State of Telangana

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 627Decided 19 Jul 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1750 of 2023
S. Ravindra Bhat · Aravind Kumar

Background

A woman died after being allegedly assaulted by six people, including the two appellants, who were accused of beating her and kicking her in the stomach. The trial court acquitted the accused of murder but convicted several of them, including the appellants (Accused Nos. 3 and 4), for the lesser offence of voluntarily causing hurt, sentencing them to six months' rigorous imprisonment. The High Court upheld this conviction, and the appellants (accused No. 3 and 4) approached the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the prosecution's own witnesses (relatives of the deceased) had consistently stated that only Accused No. 1 had kicked the deceased, and none of them attributed any specific overt act to the appellants. They made only vague, generalised claims that "all the accused" beat the deceased during a chaotic scene where families had formed a crowd. The Court held that mere presence at the scene of a crime does not establish common intention under Section 34 IPC, and that convicting someone based on vague, uncorroborated statements without any specific act being attributed to them cannot be sustained. Since no cogent evidence linked the appellants to any assault, the Court set aside the conviction and acquitted them.

Lesson Learnt

Criminal conviction requires specific, cogent evidence of an accused's own actions, being merely present in a crowd during an incident, without a witness clearly attributing a specific act to that person, is not enough to sustain a conviction, even for a lesser offence.

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

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