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Ghanshyam Mandal and Ors. v. The State of Bihar (now Jharkhand)

Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 194Decided 25 Feb 2026
Crl.A. No.-003105-003105 - 2025
Justice J.K. Maheshwari · Justice Atul S. Chandurkar

Background

In August 1985, following an altercation over goats grazing on crops, a group of men armed with weapons including a pistol, sword, axe and spears attacked and killed two brothers, Bulaki Mandal and his nephew Hriday, in a village in Bihar (now Jharkhand). The Sessions Court convicted the appellants of murder based on the testimony of four eyewitnesses and sentenced them to life imprisonment; the Jharkhand High Court upheld the conviction in 2019. The appellants challenged their conviction before the Supreme Court decades after the incident, arguing the eyewitnesses were all relatives of the victims and thus biased, that no murder weapons were ever recovered, and that they were improperly and only generically questioned under Section 313 of the CrPC about the evidence against them.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the four eyewitnesses' testimony was consistent, credible, and had withstood cross-examination without any material contradiction: the mere fact that witnesses were related to the deceased did not, by itself, discredit their evidence, since their presence at the scene was natural. Relying on established precedent, the Court reaffirmed that non-recovery of the assault weapons is not fatal to a prosecution case where reliable ocular evidence, corroborated by medical evidence, otherwise establishes guilt. On the Section 313 objection, the Court held that generic or similarly-worded questions to co-accused do not automatically vitiate a conviction. The accused must additionally show actual prejudice resulted, which the appellants failed to demonstrate here given the strength of the eyewitness evidence. Finding no infirmity in either the trial court's or the High Court's findings, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the conviction and life sentence.

Lesson Learnt

A murder conviction can be sustained on credible eyewitness testimony alone even without recovery of the weapon used, and a claim that questioning under Section 313 CrPC was too generic will not overturn a conviction unless the accused can show they were actually prejudiced by it, being related to the victim does not, on its own, disqualify a witness.

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

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