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The State of Punjab v. Gurnam @ Gama Etc.

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 960Decided 30 Jul 2025
Criminal Appeal Nos. 2836-2837 of 2025
Justice Rajesh Bindal · Justice Augustine George Masih

Background

In 2009, police intercepted a truck and found 750 kg of poppy husk along with two persons, Gurnam Singh alias Gama and Jaswinder Singh. They were tried and convicted in 2010, sentenced to 12 years' rigorous imprisonment. In 2018, the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside their conviction, relying on a Supreme Court ruling (Mohan Lal v. State of Punjab) that had held it was unfair for the same person to be both the informant who registers the FIR and the investigator of the case. The State of Punjab appealed, pointing out that Gurnam had a long history of other narcotics-related FIRs.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court explained that the legal landscape had shifted since the High Court's 2018 decision: a later three-judge bench (Varinder Kumar) had clarified that the Mohan Lal rule should not automatically apply to cases already pending before it was decided, and, most importantly, a Constitution Bench in Mukesh Singh's case later overruled Mohan Lal altogether, holding that the mere fact that the informant is also the investigator does not by itself make an investigation unfair or entitle the accused to acquittal. Since the High Court had acquitted the respondents solely on the now-overruled Mohan Lal principle without examining the actual evidence, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and sent the case back for a fresh decision on the merits of the evidence.

Lesson Learnt

A legal rule that benefits an accused today can be overruled by a larger bench tomorrow, and appeals that are still pending must be decided under the law as it currently stands: an acquittal based purely on a technical legal principle, without examining the actual evidence, is vulnerable to being overturned once that principle changes.

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

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