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Viram @ Virma v. The State of Madhya Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 772Decided 23 Nov 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 31 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice B.V. Nagarathna

Background

In 1995, a group of about 21 people, including the appellants, allegedly attacked several villagers in Madhya Pradesh following an earlier altercation, armed with weapons like swords, spears, and sticks, resulting in the death of one villager (Babulal) and injuries to several others. The trial court convicted the accused of murder (with the aid of the "unlawful assembly" provision, Section 149 IPC) and causing hurt to the other injured witnesses, sentencing them to life imprisonment; the Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld these convictions. Some of the surviving convicted appellants challenged their murder conviction before the Supreme Court, arguing inconsistencies between witness testimony and the medical evidence about the fatal injury.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that while most eyewitness testimony was broadly reliable and consistent, there was a genuine mismatch between the medical evidence (which identified a fatal blunt-weapon injury to the head) and the testimony about which specific accused inflicted it with which weapon. Applying its precedent that such inconsistency with medical evidence can be fatal to a murder charge, the Court held the conviction for murder (Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC) was not justified, but found abundant evidence that the appellants had still participated in a violent attack with deadly weapons. The Court therefore downgraded the conviction to the lesser offence of voluntarily causing grievous hurt (Section 326 read with Section 149 IPC) and reduced the sentence from life imprisonment to seven years, while upholding the separate convictions and sentences for injuries caused to the other victims. The appeals were partly allowed.

Lesson Learnt

A murder conviction cannot stand if the eyewitness account of who struck the fatal blow does not match what the medical evidence shows about how the fatal injury was actually caused: courts will adjust the conviction to the lesser, consistent offence rather than acquit or convict outright where the underlying violent attack is otherwise clearly proven.

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

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