Content Provider | Supreme Court of India |
---|---|
e-ISSN | 30484839 |
Language | English |
Access Restriction | NDLI |
Subject Keyword | Indian Penal Code 1860 Appeal Against Acquittal Presumption of innocence |
Content Type | Text |
Resource Type | Law Judgement |
Jurisdiction | India |
Case Type | Appeal |
Court | Supreme Court of India |
Disposal Nature | Appeal Dismissed |
Headnote | Appeal Against Acquittal—Presumption of innocence—Power of High Court—Conviction, when can be based on circumstantial evidence—Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898), 8. 423 (1) (a) Indian Penal Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860), S. 120B.Appellant Agarwal was an Income Tax Officer and appellant Kulkarni, a clerk under him. They were put up for trial along with another clerk of the Department on several charge the principal charge being that they had entered into a criminal conspiracy to obtain for themselves pecuniary advantage in the form of income-tax refund orders in the name of fictitious persons and had thereby fraudulently misappropriated a large amount of Government money. The trial Judge held that the prosecution had failed to establish criminal conspiracy and acquitted the appellants of the charge under s. 120B and the second appellant of all other charges under the Indian Penal Code but while acquitting the third person also under s. 120B, convicted him of other offends as he had pleaded guilty. The State appealed against this order of acquittal. The High Court allowed the appeal in part and convicted all the accused persons under s. 120B of the Code and the second appellant also under the other charges. Held, that there was no doubt that the powers of the High Court under s. 423 (1) (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure in dealing with an order of acquittal were as wide as those under s. 423 (1) (b) in respect of orders of conviction; but in dealing with an appeal against acquittal that court had to bear in mind the fact that the initial presumption of innocence in favour of the accused person is strengthened by the order of acquittal; But however cautious or circumspect the court might be, it was, nevertheless, free to arrive at its own conclusions as to the guilt or innocence of the accused on the evidence adduced before it by the prosecution.Observations made on this point in certain decided cases of this Court were not intended to lay down a rigid or inflexible rule that should govern all such appeals and it is not necessary that the High Court must characterise the findings as perverse, before it can reverse a judgement of acquittal. It was settled law that a conviction can be reasonably founded on circumstantial evidence if it is wholly inconsistent with the innocence of the accused and Consistent only with his guilt. If the circumstances proved are consistent either with innocence or guilt, the accused person is entitled to the benefit of doubt. But in applying this principle a distinction must be made between primary facts which have to be proved in the ordinary way and the inference of guilt to be drawn therefrom. It is in connection with the latter aspect of the problem that the doctrine of benefit of doubt can apply and an inference of guilt can be drawn only if the proved facts are wholly inconsistent with innocence, and consistent only with guilt. |
Judge | Honble Mr. Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar |
Neutral Citation | 1962 INSC 164 |
Petitioner | M. G. Agarwal |
Respondent | State Of Maharashtra |
SCR | [1963] 2 S.C.R. 405 |
Judgement Date | 1962-04-24 |
Case Number | 176 |
National Digital Library of India (NDLI) is a virtual repository of learning resources which is not just a repository with search/browse facilities but provides a host of services for the learner community. It is sponsored and mentored by Ministry of Education, Government of India, through its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT). Filtered and federated searching is employed to facilitate focused searching so that learners can find the right resource with least effort and in minimum time. NDLI provides user group-specific services such as Examination Preparatory for School and College students and job aspirants. Services for Researchers and general learners are also provided. NDLI is designed to hold content of any language and provides interface support for 10 most widely used Indian languages. It is built to provide support for all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular forms of access devices and differently-abled learners. It is designed to enable people to learn and prepare from best practices from all over the world and to facilitate researchers to perform inter-linked exploration from multiple sources. It is developed, operated and maintained from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
Learn more about this project from here.
NDLI is a conglomeration of freely available or institutionally contributed or donated or publisher managed contents. Almost all these contents are hosted and accessed from respective sources. The responsibility for authenticity, relevance, completeness, accuracy, reliability and suitability of these contents rests with the respective organization and NDLI has no responsibility or liability for these. Every effort is made to keep the NDLI portal up and running smoothly unless there are some unavoidable technical issues.
Ministry of Education, through its National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), has sponsored and funded the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) project.
Sl. | Authority | Responsibilities | Communication Details |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education |
Sanctioning Authority | https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives |
2 | Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur | Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project | https://www.iitkgp.ac.in |
3 | National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur | The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project | Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in |
4 | Project PI / Joint PI | Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project |
Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon |
5 | Website/Portal (Helpdesk) | Queries regarding NDLI and its services | support@ndl.gov.in |
6 | Contents and Copyright Issues | Queries related to content curation and copyright issues | content@ndl.gov.in |
7 | National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club) | Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach | clubsupport@ndl.gov.in |
8 | Digital Preservation Centre (DPC) | Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books | dpc@ndl.gov.in |
9 | IDR Setup or Support | Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops | idr@ndl.gov.in |