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State of Haryana v. Krishan & Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2017 INSC 474Decided 9 Jun 2017
Criminal Appeal No. 847 of 2006
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

In December 1980, the infamous "Kalanwali Hooch Tragedy" struck Sirsa district, Haryana: 36 people died and 44 more were permanently blinded after drinking liquor adulterated with poisonous methyl alcohol, bought from a licensed liquor vend run by Krishan and Som Nath. A trial court convicted the two licensees of murder, poisoning, and conspiracy, sentencing them to life imprisonment, but the Punjab & Haryana High Court later acquitted them, holding there was no evidence directly linking the methyl-alcohol-laced liquor found in victims' bodies to the specific bottles sold at the respondents' vend. The State of Haryana appealed the acquittal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held the High Court was plainly wrong to say there was no evidence connecting the two liquor contractors to the tragedy. It pointed to contemporaneous statements from dying and injured victims naming the respondents' vend, testimony from more than two dozen doctors confirming methyl alcohol poisoning, forensic recovery of adulterated liquor bottles the respondents' staff had tried to dump in a canal to destroy evidence, and direct witness testimony that the poisoned liquor came from the respondents' shop. The Court found this evidence, taken together, proved beyond doubt that Krishan and Som Nath knowingly sold liquor containing a substance they knew could kill or seriously injure, satisfying the standard for murder under Section 300 "fourthly" of the IPC even if the separate conspiracy charge under Section 120B could not be sustained. The High Court's acquittal was set aside and the trial court's conviction was restored, with the respondents ordered to surrender to serve their sentences.

Lesson Learnt

A conviction for a crime causing death can rest on the cumulative weight of circumstantial and witness evidence: direct forensic matching of every poisoned bottle to its seller is not always required if dying declarations, consistent witness accounts, and conduct like destroying evidence point convincingly to the same conclusion.

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

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