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Rakesh and Another v. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 321Decided 6 Jul 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 556 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

Rakesh and Anish were convicted by a trial court for the 2006 murder of Bhishampal Singh, along with a co-accused, Suresh, who did not appeal. Rakesh was alleged to have shot the deceased with a country-made pistol, while the other two allegedly attacked him with knives. The Allahabad High Court upheld the conviction and life sentence, after which Rakesh and Anish appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging the reliability of the two eyewitnesses and pointing to a mismatch between the ballistic report and the recovered weapon.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court re-appreciated the entire evidence, including the depositions of the two eyewitnesses and the medical evidence, and found both witnesses credible and their presence at the scene natural and well-corroborated. It held that minor contradictions in testimony do not undermine credibility unless they go to the root of the matter, and that a mismatch between a ballistic report and recovered weapon does not by itself discredit otherwise reliable eyewitness evidence or require an acquittal. The Court also rejected the argument that the knife-wielding accused could not be convicted because the victim may have already been dead from the gunshot, since there was no evidence establishing the sequence of injuries and they were convicted with the aid of Section 34 IPC (common intention). Finding no error in the concurrent findings of the trial court and High Court, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the convictions and sentences.

Lesson Learnt

Appellate courts will not disturb a conviction merely because of minor inconsistencies in witness testimony or a technical mismatch in forensic evidence, so long as the core eyewitness account is credible and corroborated by medical evidence; courts also look at the overall conduct of co-accused acting with common intention rather than isolating each person's individual act.

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

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