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Nand Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 906 of 2012)Decided 31 Oct 2014
Criminal Appeal No. 906 of 2012
Justice F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

An armed group attacked rivals in a village after longstanding factional disputes. A woman and her daughter witnessed the killing of their husband or father and two sons or brothers. These appeals concerned the accused whose murder and rioting convictions the High Court had maintained, after it acquitted other defendants.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals and upheld the appellants' convictions and sentences. It accepted the two eyewitnesses' consistent accounts identifying the accused and their participation, despite minor discrepancies. Their relationship to the victims did not make their evidence inherently unreliable, and the prosecution did not have to examine every possible eyewitness once sufficient reliable evidence was available. Liability for an offence committed in pursuit of an unlawful assembly's common object did not require proof that each member personally struck a particular blow; mere passive presence was distinguishable from proved membership and shared purpose.

Lesson Learnt

Reliable testimony from a victim's relatives can support a conviction after careful scrutiny. Joining an armed group with a shared criminal purpose can bring liability for the group's offence even when your individual blow is not separately identified.

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

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