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Rajendra @ Rajappa & Ors. v. State of Karnataka

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 219Decided 26 Mar 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 1438 of 2011
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul · Justice R. Subhash Reddy

Background

The accused (father, uncles and cousins of the complainant) were tried for murdering the complainant's husband after a dispute over toddy-tree tapping rights, using an axe, stick, pickaxe and a sharp agricultural tool. The trial court acquitted all the accused, mainly because it distrusted the eyewitnesses for being close relatives of both the deceased and the accused. The State's appeal succeeded before the Karnataka High Court, which convicted four of the accused (accused nos. 2 to 5) for murder and related offences, relying on the same eyewitnesses. The convicted accused then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, holding that the trial court's acquittal was based on a perverse appreciation of evidence: the mere fact that witnesses were related to both sides was not, by itself, a ground to disbelieve them, especially since two of the key witnesses were the accused's own daughter and wife who had no reason to falsely implicate him. The Court found the eyewitness accounts consistent with the complaint and the postmortem report, and held that only contradictions on material particulars (not minor, natural discrepancies from rustic witnesses recalling events years later) can discredit testimony. It also rejected the argument to downgrade the conviction from murder (Section 302 IPC) to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304-II), finding the assault was intentional and the accused shared a common object to kill.

Lesson Learnt

A relationship between a witness and the accused or the deceased does not automatically make their testimony unreliable: courts must assess whether discrepancies go to the root of the case or are merely natural, minor lapses of memory, particularly for rural witnesses recounting events long after they occurred.

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

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