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Deep Narayan Chourasia v. The State of Bihar

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 263Decided 25 Feb 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 180 of 2019
Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

Five men were tried for the murder of one Kaushalya Devi. The trial court convicted only one of them, Kanhai Prasad Chourasia, under Section 302 IPC (murder) and the Arms Act, sentencing him to life imprisonment; the appellant, Deep Narayan Chourasia, and three others were acquitted of the murder charge but convicted only under the Arms Act and sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, the Patna High Court mistakenly proceeded as if all five accused had been convicted of murder, and ended up convicting the appellant and the other three Arms Act-only accused of murder as well, without the State having appealed their acquittal and without any notice of enhancement being issued to them.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had committed fundamental jurisdictional errors: it wrongly assumed a factual premise (that all five were convicted of murder), convicted four acquitted men of a graver offence without any appeal or enhancement notice against them, and even failed to impose any sentence for the "new" murder conviction it created. Relying on the Constitution Bench ruling in Durga Shankar Mehta v. Thakur Raghuraj Singh (that Article 136 powers can be exercised even to benefit non-appealing co-accused where justice demands), the Court held that an illegal order could not be allowed to stand against the other accused merely because only one of them had appealed. It therefore set aside the High Court's judgment in its entirety, as to all five accused, including those who had not appealed, and remanded both criminal appeals to the High Court for a fresh hearing on merits, releasing the appellant on bail in the interim given he had already served part of his sentence.

Lesson Learnt

Appellate courts cannot convict a person of a more serious crime than the one appealed, without the prosecution first appealing the acquittal or giving proper notice of intent to enhance the sentence/conviction; and the Supreme Court can extend relief even to co-accused who never filed their own appeal, if the same illegality affects them equally.

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

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