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Boro vs The State of Madhya Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 1259Decided 7 Dec 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 162 of 2010

Background

Nine people were accused of fatally assaulting a man named Laxminarayan and injuring his parents during a nighttime attack at a field house in Madhya Pradesh. The trial court convicted all nine of murder; on appeal, the High Court acquitted five of the accused but upheld the conviction of the remaining accused, including Boro (accused no. 3) and Shyam (accused no. 9). Boro and Shyam, along with a co-accused Ramcharan (who died during the appeal's pendency), brought these two connected appeals before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court acquitted Boro and Shyam. It found the case rested mainly on the interested testimony of the victim's parents (who were themselves injured and lay on the ground for about an hour after the attack), whose accounts were inconsistent about the weapons used and contradicted their own earlier statements to the police and the Executive Magistrate, in which several of the accused, including Boro, were not even named. Since the High Court had already acquitted five co-accused implicated by the same witnesses' testimony, the Court held there was no rational basis to treat Boro and Shyam differently, and their convictions could not be sustained on such unreliable evidence. Ramcharan's connected appeal stood abated due to his death.

Lesson Learnt

A conviction cannot rest on eyewitness testimony riddled with material contradictions and omissions, especially where the same witnesses' evidence has already been disbelieved as to other co-accused facing identical allegations. Courts apply the principle of parity to avoid inconsistent outcomes among similarly situated accused.

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

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