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Union of India & Ors. v. Sepoy Pravat Kumar Behuria

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 1212Decided 6 Nov 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 1627 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Hemant Gupta

Background

A Sepoy in the Indian Army was accused of assaulting a senior officer with a sharp weapon, causing a skull fracture. He was tried by Summary Court Martial, a proceeding that lasted less than an hour, found guilty, and dismissed from service. The Armed Forces Tribunal later set aside the dismissal, finding serious procedural lapses, including that the soldier was denied a chance to cross-examine witnesses and that his signatures appeared to have been obtained on blank pages before the evidence was actually recorded. The Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court against that reversal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court independently examined the original Court of Inquiry and summary-of-evidence records and confirmed the Tribunal's finding: the soldier's signatures were placed on pages in a manner showing they were taken in advance of the testimony being written in, and the Summary Court Martial itself was conducted in under 45 minutes without affording him a chance to cross-examine witnesses, violating Army Rules 179 and 180. The Court also noted genuine inconsistencies between the medical evidence (a "compressed" type injury) and the prosecution's account of a sharp-edged weapon assault, along with the absence of blood or fingerprints on the alleged weapon. Applying the settled principle that an appellate court should not disturb an acquittal-type finding unless the trial court's view was perverse or legally impossible, and that where two reasonable views exist the one favouring the accused must prevail, the Court upheld the Tribunal's order and dismissed the Union of India's appeal.

Lesson Learnt

Even in military disciplinary proceedings, basic fair-trial safeguards, a genuine opportunity to cross-examine witnesses and a proper, contemporaneous recording of evidence, are mandatory, and courts will not uphold a conviction or dismissal obtained by cutting corners on procedure, however serious the underlying allegation.

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

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