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Surajsinh alias Sonu Surajsinh Collectorsinh alias Sevaram Rajput v. State of Gujarat

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 695 of 2016)Decided 18 Apr 2017
Criminal Appeal No. 695 of 2016
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

A seven-year-old boy, Anurag, went missing from a wedding reception in Ahmedabad in May 2010, after which his family received ransom calls demanding Rs. 10 lakh for his safe return. Police traced the calls to Rajasthan, and a joint operation by Gujarat and Rajasthan police recovered the boy and arrested the appellant and a co-accused, Kamlesh, at Dausa, Jaipur, five days later. Both were convicted by the trial court under Section 364(A) read with Section 114 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment; their appeals were dismissed by the Gujarat High Court, and only the appellant pursued a further appeal to the Supreme Court, assisted by a court-appointed amicus curiae.

Decision Breakdown

The amicus curiae argued that the appellant's prior acquittal in a related Rajasthan firearm case undermined the prosecution story, that the ransom-call SIM card was never recovered from the appellant, and that the child witness's testimony contained discrepancies and lacked independent corroboration. The Supreme Court held that the child witness's account of the kidnapping and recovery was independently corroborated by multiple other witnesses, including police officers from both states, and that minor inconsistencies in timing did not make the prosecution case incredible, citing its own precedent (Chandrappa v. State of Karnataka) that witnesses cannot be expected to give a "picture perfect" account years after an incident. It also found the non-recovery of the particular SIM card insignificant given that call records independently established the ransom calls were made and received as alleged. Finding the trial court's and High Court's concurrent findings of guilt well-supported by evidence, the Supreme Court declined to interfere under Article 136 of the Constitution and dismissed the appeal, affirming the life sentence.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not discard an otherwise credible prosecution case, including the testimony of a child witness, merely because of minor, non-material discrepancies in timing or because a specific piece of physical evidence (like a particular SIM card) was not recovered, so long as the core story is corroborated by independent evidence.

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

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