NDLI: Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Content Provider	Supreme Court of India
e-ISSN	30484839
Language	English
Access Restriction	NDLI
Subject Keyword	Chance witness Imprisonment for life Acquittal Onus of proof Seen together Murder Rustic/illiterate witness Plea of alibi
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Law Judgement
Jurisdiction	India
Act(s) Referred	Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860)
Case(s) Referred	Referred Case 0 Referred Case 1
Case Type	Appeal
Court	Supreme Court of India
Disposal Nature	Appeal Allowed
Headnote	Issue for Consideration Whether the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt, the entire chain of circumstances, not leaving any link missing for the appellant to escape from the clutches of law.Penal Code, 1860 – s. 302 rw s. 34 – Murder – Prosecution case that the appellant along with the lady with whom he had illicit relations, administered poison to the appellant’s wife, with the motive to eliminate her and caused her death – Conviction u/s.302/34 and sentenced to life imprisonment – High Court upheld the order of conviction and sentence against the appellant while acquitted the lady – Correctness:Held: There was no eye-witness to the incident – Prosecution case rested on circumstantial evidence – Presence of the appellant and the lady in the appellant’s house in the intervening night not firmly and cogently established – Several omissions and improvements in the cross examination of the prosecution witnesses – There was a strong hypothesis that the deceased had committed suicide, which explanation was led by the appellant in his statement u/s.313 CrPC and is sufficient to create doubt – Furthermore, evidence of prosecution witnesses not sufficient to prove presence of the lady at the appellant’s house, as a natural corollary, such evidence cannot be relied on to conclude that the appellant was present in the house – Also the manner in which the High Court sought to distinguish the case of the appellant from the lady is perverse – When the conviction is to be based on circumstantial evidence solely, then there should not be any snap in the chain of circumstances – Failure to prove a single circumstance cogently can cause a snap in the chain of circumstances and make the accused entitled to benefit of doubt – In view thereof, the concurrent findings of conviction set aside – Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – Evidence.[Paras 25, 30, 33, 36-38] Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s. 161 – Examination of witnesses by the police – Failure of the prosecution witnesses to mention in their statements u/s 161 about the involvement of an accused – However, their subsequent statement before court during trial regarding involvement of that particular accused – Reliance upon: Held: It cannot be relied upon – Prosecution cannot seek to prove a fact during trial through a witness which such witness had not stated to police during investigation – Evidence of that witness regarding the said improved fact is of no significance. [Para 26]Evidence – Circumstantial evidence – Evidentiary value: Held: Circumstances from which an inference of guilt is sought to be drawn must be cogently and firmly established – Those circumstances should be of a definite tendency unerringly pointing towards the guilt of the accused – Circumstances taken cumulatively should form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion, that within all human probability, the crime was committed by the accused and they should be incapable of explanation on any hypothesis other than that of the guilt of the accused and inconsistent with his innocence. [Para 9] Evidence – Rustic/illiterate witness – Evidentiary value: Held: Appreciation of evidence led by such a witness has to be treated differently from other kinds of witnesses – It cannot be subjected to a hyper-technical inquiry – Evidence of a rustic/ illiterate witness must not be disregarded if there were to be certain minor contradictions or inconsistencies in the deposition – Witness. [Para 27]
Judge	Hon'ble Mr. Justice Aravind Kumar
Neutral Citation	2024 INSC 19
Petitioner	Darshan Singh
Respondent	State Of Punjab
SCR	[2024] 1 S.C.R. 248
Judgement Date	2024-01-04
Case Number	163

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

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Please Log-in to view this content

Ratnu Yadav Vs. The State of Chhattisgarh

Amrit Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Raghubir Singh Vs. State of Haryana

Ashok Vs. State of Maharashtra

Dudh Nath Pandey Vs. The State of U.p.

Chawla and Another Vs. State of Haryana

Bantu @ Naresh Giri Vs. State of M.p.

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

The State of Punjab Vs. Darshan Singh

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Please Log-in to view this content

Similar Documents

Ratnu Yadav Vs. The State of Chhattisgarh

Amrit Singh Vs. State of Punjab

Raghubir Singh Vs. State of Haryana

Ashok Vs. State of Maharashtra

Dudh Nath Pandey Vs. The State of U.p.

Chawla and Another Vs. State of Haryana

Bantu @ Naresh Giri Vs. State of M.p.

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab

The State of Punjab Vs. Darshan Singh

Darshan Singh Vs. State of Punjab