Jodhraj & Anr. v. The State of Rajasthan
Background
In May 2005, a group of 14 people allegedly formed an unlawful assembly in a Rajasthan village and attacked one Hariram, who died of his injuries. The trial court convicted five of the accused (including appellants Jodhraj and Jagdish Prasad) for murder, relying mainly on two eyewitnesses, while acquitting the rest. The High Court later also acquitted one of the five convicted men (Bhanwar Lal) after finding those same two eyewitnesses unreliable as to him, but still upheld the conviction of Jodhraj and Jagdish Prasad based on the very same witnesses. Both the convicted men, and separately the State (challenging Bhanwar Lal's acquittal), appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that if the High Court itself had found the two key eyewitnesses unreliable as a matter of credibility (due to an 18-day delay in recording their statements and exaggeration implicating too many people) and used that to acquit one co-accused, it could not then rely on the testimony of those very same witnesses to sustain the conviction of the other accused, absent any other corroborating evidence. The Court found no independent evidence against Jodhraj and Jagdish Prasad beyond the doubted testimony, so it quashed their convictions and acquitted them, giving them the benefit of the doubt. The State's appeal against Bhanwar Lal's acquittal was dismissed, as the High Court's reasons for disbelieving the witnesses were found to be cogent.
Lesson Learnt
A court cannot pick and choose which parts of an already-doubted witness's testimony to believe: if a witness is found unreliable enough to acquit one accused, the same doubt should ordinarily benefit similarly placed co-accused unless there is separate, independent evidence against them.