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Kishore & Ors. vs State of Punjab

Not available · 2024 INSC 91Decided 7 Feb 2024
Not available
Justice Abhay S. Oka · Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

Five men allegedly broke into a house at night, assaulted the occupants, stole ornaments and cash, and fatally injured an elderly couple, Pratap Singh and Gurpal Kaur. All five were convicted of rioting, house-breaking, and murder (with the aid of Section 149 IPC, which fixes group liability for an "unlawful assembly's" common object). On appeal, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted two of the five accused but upheld the conviction of the appellants Kishore, Bala, and Banaras, who then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that because two of the original five accused had already been acquitted, there could no longer be an "unlawful assembly" of five or more persons as legally required, so the convictions under Sections 148, 460, and 302 IPC (all of which depended on that group liability via Section 149) could not stand. It also found the eyewitness evidence vague and unreliable regarding who actually assaulted the deceased, and noted the prosecution's unexplained failure to examine key witnesses (including the injured husband and a teenage niece who first raised the alarm) and to properly prove the ornament identification. While some individual assaults were established against specific accused, those lesser offences (simple/grievous hurt) were already more than covered by the seven-plus years the appellants had already spent in custody. The Court therefore acquitted all three appellants of the charges and set them free.

Lesson Learnt

In criminal cases relying on collective/group liability (Section 149 IPC), the prosecution must actually prove the existence of an "unlawful assembly" of the required size. If enough co-accused are acquitted to break that number, the entire chain of group-liability convictions can collapse, however serious the underlying crime; this shows why prosecutors must build cases on solid individual evidence, not just numbers.

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

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