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Vikramjit Kakati vs. The State of Assam

Criminal Appeal · 2022 INSC 793Decided 4 Aug 2022
Criminal Appeal No. 1140 of 2022
Ajay Rastogi · C.T. Ravikumar

Background

Following the death by burning of Qureshi Sahidul Islam in 2009, an FIR alleged foul play against his wife and, separately, against the appellant, Vikramjit Kakati, a colleague and friend of the deceased. The only allegation against the appellant was that he had conspired to remove evidence from the scene. In fact, on learning of the burn injuries from the deceased's wife, the appellant had driven the deceased to a nursing home and then arranged his transfer to a larger hospital, where he later died. A trial court framed charges against the appellant under Sections 302/120-B (murder/criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC, and the Gauhati High Court declined to interfere when the appellant sought discharge, leading to this appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and discharged the appellant from all charges. Applying the settled legal test for discharge under Section 227 Cr.P.C. (drawn from P. Vijayan v. State of Kerala and M.E. Shivalingamurthy v. CBI) (that a charge should be framed only if the material on record raises at least a "grave suspicion" against the accused, not mere suspicion) the Court found that the charge-sheet contained no prima facie material connecting the appellant to any motive, to the alleged conspiracy, or to the alleged destruction of evidence. The sole eyewitness, the household's domestic help, never implicated the appellant in either her police statement or her statement to a magistrate, and instead confirmed that he had helped take the deceased to hospital. Even the complainant's own FIR did not name the appellant, only expressing a "strong suspicion" later. Both the trial court and the High Court had failed to actually scrutinize whether any evidence existed against him before allowing the charges to stand. The Court quashed both lower orders and discharged the appellant, while clarifying that its findings were confined to him alone and that the trial against the other accused would proceed independently on its own merits.

Lesson Learnt

At the stage of framing criminal charges, courts must actually examine whether the prosecution's own material shows at least a grave suspicion against each accused individually, helping an injured person get medical treatment, or being present near a crime scene, is not evidence of guilt, and an accused should not be forced to endure a full criminal trial where the charge-sheet discloses no real evidentiary link to the alleged offence.

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

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