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Kanakarajan @ Kanakan v. State of Kerala

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 841 of 2007)Decided 21 Apr 2017
Criminal Appeal No. 841 of 2007
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

During a temple ox procession at night in Kerala in March 2000, a group of men allegedly attacked and killed one Rajesh with swords and sticks; a complainant who tried to intervene was also injured. Nine persons were originally accused; one of them was later found dead, hanging from a tree in suspicious circumstances. The trial court convicted two of the accused (including the appellant, Kanakarajan) of murder and related offences while acquitting the rest, and the High Court further acquitted one of the two convicted men but upheld Kanakarajan's conviction, leading to this appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found serious infirmities in the prosecution's evidence: the main eyewitness (the complainant, cousin of the deceased) behaved inconsistently and his presence at the scene had already been disbelieved by the High Court itself; another eyewitness turned hostile; two other "independent" witnesses gave statements only five days later and could not even name the accused; and the panch witness to the weapon's recovery also turned hostile, saying he signed without reading the document. The Court was also troubled that the prosecution never explained 16 unexplained injuries found on the body of the co-accused who died mysteriously, which cast doubt on the whole sequence of events, and noted that no test identification parade was held. Concluding that the case was riddled with doubt and that convicting on such unreliable evidence would be unsafe, the Court set aside the High Court's judgment, allowed the appeal, acquitted Kanakarajan, and discharged his bail bonds.

Lesson Learnt

A criminal conviction cannot stand on eyewitness testimony that is inconsistent, uncorroborated, or already disbelieved in part by the courts below: when independent witnesses are available but not reliably examined and key facts (like unexplained injuries on a related person) go unexplained, the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

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

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