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Nimai Ghosh & Ors. v. The State of Bihar (Now Jharkhand)

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 816Decided 23 Jan 2025
Criminal Appeal No. 102 of 2013
Justice J.K. Maheshwari · Justice Aravind Kumar

Background

In 1989, a man named Manmohan Ghosh was allegedly shot and stabbed to death near a railway bridge while cycling with his son and two nephews, amid a background of family land-dispute enmity. The trial court acquitted all six accused, finding the eyewitnesses' conduct suspicious and no weapons recovered. On appeal by the State, the High Court reversed course and convicted three of the accused (Nimai Ghosh, Sonachand Ghosh, and Sambal Ghosh) relying on the eyewitnesses' testimony. Those three appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court restored the acquittal, extensively surveying its own precedents on how courts should judge whether an eyewitness's post-incident conduct is "natural." It found the three eyewitnesses' behavior deeply implausible: none of them reported the murder to police for about 14 hours, none informed their own family despite one being the victim's son, and the body was left overnight at the scene without being taken to a hospital. The medical evidence also undercut the prosecution's story, only one gunshot wound (not two, as alleged) was found. With no weapons recovered and no forensic corroboration, the Court held the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and reinstated the trial court's acquittal.

Lesson Learnt

When witnesses who claim to have watched a close relative being murdered behave in ways any ordinary, sensible person would not, such as not reporting it for hours or not calling for help, courts are entitled to treat their testimony as unreliable, however serious the crime alleged.

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

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