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Chotkau vs State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 1032Decided 28 Sept 2022
Criminal Appeal Nos. 361-362 of 2018
S. Abdul Nazeer · A.S. Bopanna · V. Ramasubramanian

Background

In March 2012, a six-year-old girl went missing during a Holi festival outing with her uncle (the appellant), and her dead body was later found in a sugarcane field, with signs of rape and murder. Based purely on circumstantial evidence, chiefly the testimony of three witnesses invoking the "last seen together" theory, the Sessions Court convicted the appellant under Sections 302 and 376 IPC and sentenced him to death, holding it a "rarest of rare" case. The High Court confirmed the conviction and death sentence on reference and appeal. The appellant, who could not initially afford a lawyer and was represented by a court-appointed amicus, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the prosecution's three key witnesses fundamentally unreliable, identifying serious, irreconcilable contradictions on how the FIR was lodged, where and when the body was found and handled, when and where the inquest was conducted, and even the colour of the victim's clothing. The Court also held it fatal that the prosecution never subjected the accused to medical examination or obtained a Forensic Sciences Laboratory report on the bloodstained clothing, despite it being a circumstantial-evidence case where such corroboration was crucial. Combined with an unexplained five-day delay in sending the FIR to the Magistrate, which undermines its credibility as a check against fabrication, the Court held the chain of circumstances was not proved beyond reasonable doubt, set aside the conviction and death sentence, and ordered the appellant's release.

Lesson Learnt

In circumstantial-evidence cases carrying the death penalty, courts must scrutinise witness testimony and investigative lapses (delayed FIR transmission, missing forensic/medical evidence) with heightened rigour before convicting: a conviction cannot rest on witnesses whose accounts on core facts keep changing, however heinous the alleged crime.

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

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