Suryavir vs. The State of Haryana
Background
The appellant, along with two others, was tried for the murder of a young man, Rajinder alias Raju, who was shot dead in Jind, Haryana in 2008. The Trial Court convicted the appellant and one co-accused (Devender) to life imprisonment while acquitting the third accused; the Punjab and Haryana High Court affirmed both convictions. Devender's separate Special Leave Petition to the Supreme Court had already been dismissed without reasons in 2016, while the present appellant pursued his own appeal years later.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found that the prosecution's identification of the assailants rested entirely on rumours reaching the deceased's parents, since neither eyewitness actually knew the accused or the source of their information, no test identification parade was ever conducted, and the eyewitnesses' accounts of how the attackers arrived and fled (car versus motorcycle) were inconsistent and contradicted their own police statements. Holding that such unreliable identification evidence, coupled with mere recovery evidence that could not stand alone, failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the Court acquitted the appellant. Recognising that co-accused Devender stood on identical footing but had lost his earlier SLP without any reasoned order, the Court invoked its power (relying on Harbans Singh v. State of U.P. and Akhil Ali Jehangir Ali Sayyed v. State of Maharashtra) to prevent manifest injustice under Article 21, recalled the dismissal of Devender's petition, and extended him the same acquittal.
Lesson Learnt
Eyewitness identification based on rumour rather than personal knowledge, unsupported by a test identification parade, is not reliable enough to sustain a murder conviction; and where a co-accused in an identical position was wrongly denied relief in an earlier, unreasoned order, the Supreme Court can revisit and correct that outcome to prevent manifest injustice, even without a fresh application from that co-accused.