SUKHRAM AND OTHERSversusSTATE OF U.P.

Reserved on : 18.08.2026
Delivered on : 08.09.2026
A.F.R.




         HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
                 CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 1872 of 2007

Sukhram and others
                                                       …..Appellant(s)

                                Versus

State of U.P.
                                                      …..Respondent(s)


Counsel for Appellant(s)          : Rajrshi Gupta
Counsel for Respondent(s)         : Ajay Yadav, Brij Raj, Govind Saran
                                    Hajela, Rajiv Lochan Shukla,
                                    S.k.dubey, Sanjeev Kr.gupta, Umesh
                                    Chandra      Misra,     V.c.mishra,
                                    Yogendra Pal Singh


Court No. - 42

            HON'BLE ATUL SREEDHARAN, J.
            HON'BLE ACHAL SACHDEV, J.

                   Per : Achal Sachdev, J.



1.    Heard Sri Rajrshi Gupta and Sri Rizwan Ahamad, learned counsel
for the appellants, Sri Kamal Krishna, learned Senior Counsel assisted
by Sri Ghanshyam Das, learned counsel for the informant and Ms. Divya
Ojha, learned A.G.A.-I for the State.

2.    The instant appeal has been preferred under Section 374(2) of the
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgment and order of
sentence dated 26.02.2007, passed by the learned Additional District &
Sessions Judge, Fast Track Court No. 1, Mainpuri, in Sessions Trial No.
86 of 2006 (State of U.P. Vs. Sukhram and others). By the impugned
judgment, the three appellants were convicted under Section 302 read
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with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to
imprisonment for life, together with a fine of Rs.10,000/- each, with a
further sentence in default of payment of fine.

3.     At this stage itself, it is clarified at the outset that the co-accused
Manuraj Singh was tried separately in Sessions Trial No. 86-A of
2006, and convicted by a distinct judgment dated 25.11.2011. His appeal,
Criminal Appeal No. 7002 of 2011, lies outside the scope of the present
adjudication, for the following cumulative reasons:

     1. The judgments impugned were separately delivered on different
       dates.
     2. The Sessions Trials were separately numbered, viz., 86 of 2006
       and 86-A of 2006.
     3. The evidence in the two trials, though arising from the same
       occurrence, was separately recorded, with witnesses deposing on
       different occasions and subject to distinct cross-examination.
     4. A distinct and unresolved question of juvenility attaches only to
       Manuraj Singh’s case, necessitating a separate factual inquiry that
       has no bearing on the present appellants.



4.     Accordingly, each appeal, even if arising from a common
occurrence, must be decided on its own evidence and record. This
judgment is confined to the present appeal alone.

5.     In the instant appeal, the appellants, Sukhram and Jeetraj were
released on bail by this Court vide order dated 12.01.2009. Aushan
Singh was released on bail by this Court vide order dated 19.05.2022.
The appellants' counsel, Sri Rajrshi Gupta, informed this Court of
Sukhram's death, and further stated that his death had first been brought
to the Court's notice on 26.10.2016, and that the CJM's report dated
22.03.2022 verified that Sukhram had died on 13.11.2014.

6.     Sukhram died during the pendency of the appeal, and the appeal
against him stands abated vide order dated 19.05.2022 of this Court. The
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present appeal survives only in respect of appellants, Jeetraj and Aushan
Singh.

7.    The prosecution case, as per the record, is that on 03.08.2005 at
about 08:00 a.m., the deceased Veerpal Singh and his cousin Khushiram
were standing together on the chabutra in front of Veerpal's house,
engaged in conversation. It is alleged that four persons, Sukhram,
Aushan Singh, Jeet Raj and Manuraj Singh, arrived armed with firearms
and took position on the kharanja adjoining the chabutra. According to
the prosecution version, Sukhram and Jeet Raj were armed with rifles,
while Aushan Singh and Manuraj Singh carried 12-bore guns. It is
alleged that the four accused abused and threatened Veerpal and
Khushiram, attributing their hostility to a previous enmity between the
families, and thereafter opened fire upon them. Veerpal sustained firearm
injuries and was being taken to the hospital when, according to the First
Information Report, he died on the way. The written report of the
occurrence was lodged by Khushiram at Police Station- Bewar at about
09:30 a.m. the same day, and the case was registered as Case Crime No.
397 of 2005.

8.    The F.I.R. is stated to have been lodged at 09:30 a.m. on
03.08.2005 at Police Station- Bewar, District- Mainpuri, on the written
report of Khushiram (PW-1). The investigation was initially undertaken
by Sub-Inspector Raj Narayan Dubey (PW-7). After his transfer,
Rajendra Prasad Mishra (PW-5) took over the investigation. The inquest
proceedings were conducted at the Community Health Centre, Bewar,
commencing at about 09:45 a.m. and concluding at about 11:15 a.m. The
inquest report recorded firearm injuries as the apparent cause of death.
The dead body was thereafter sent for postmortem examination,
conducted on the same day i.e. 03.08.2005, at about 5:00 p.m., at the
District Hospital, Mainpuri, by K.C. Bhardwaj (PW-4). PW-7, SI Raj
Narayan Dubey, the first Investigating Officer, prepared the site plan of
the place of occurrence, the recovery memo relating to blood-stained and
plain earth lifted from the spot, and a separate recovery memo
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concerning an empty cartridge recovered at the scene. Aushan Singh was
arrested on 04.08.2005 at about 04:30 a.m. in the Madhyapur/Kali Nadi
area. Manuraj Singh and Jeet Raj surrendered before the Chief Judicial
Magistrate on 18.08.2005; Sukhram surrendered on 01.09.2005. The
investigation was formally taken over by Rajendra Prasad Mishra
(PW-5) on 05.09.2005, and the charge-sheet under Section 302 I.P.C.
was thereafter filed. Cognizance was taken on 29.10.2005, and the case,
being exclusively triable by the Court of Session, was committed to the
Sessions Court for trial.

9.    Charges were framed against Sukhram, Aushan Singh and Jeet Raj
in Sessions Trial No. 86 of 2006 under Section 302/34 I.P.C. The
accused denied the charges and claimed trial.

10.   Manuraj Singh was proceeded against separately in Sessions Trial
No. 86-A of 2006.

11.   The prosecution examined seven witnesses in all.

12.   PW-1 Khushiram is the informant and a cousin of the deceased,
and is the principal ocular witness on whom the prosecution case
substantially rests. He deposed that he and Veerpal were standing on the
chabutra discussing the forthcoming Panchayat election at the time of
the occurrence. According to his testimony, the accused were standing
approximately fifteen paces away, on the south-eastern side of the
kharanja; Sukhram and Jeet Raj are said to have carried rifles, and
Aushan Singh and Manuraj Singh, 12-bore guns. He stated that at the
point when the accused were abusing and threatening the two of them,
his own back was turned towards the accused while Veerpal was facing
them directly, and that it was only when the firing commenced that he
turned his neck towards the accused. He, thereafter, ran towards the
north. He stated that the firing continued for about one minute, and that
none of the relatives who were with him at the time sustained any injury.

13.   PW-1 further stated that he was, at the relevant time, the
Headmaster of a Government Primary School situated at Mudai,
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approximately two to three kilometres from Shiv Singhpur, and that the
school ordinarily functioned in the month of August from about 07:00
a.m. to noon. Confronted with the apparent inconsistency between his
official duty hours and his presence at the scene at 08:00 a.m., he sought
to explain his presence by reference to leave taken by him and to the
filing of nomination or related forms for the Panchayat election. He
admitted in cross-examination that the asserted Panchayat-election
rivalry, now offered as an explanation both for his presence and for a
possible motive for the attack, found no mention in the F.I.R. and was
not stated in his first statement to the Investigating Officer, having
surfaced only in a subsequent statement. He also admitted that the earlier
enmity dating to 1986 had been settled between the parties, who had
thereafter lived together amicably until the present occurrence.

14.   PW-1 additionally described the physical layout of the place of
occurrence in some detail: Veerpal's house was surrounded by habitation,
with a chabutra in front of it and a kharanja beyond, with other houses
situated around the locality; Sukhram's own house was said to be about
fifty to sixty paces to the south-east. He stated that the accused did not
step onto the chabutra itself but remained at a distance on the kharanja,
and that Harish Chand, Shri Chand and Narottam arrived at the spot only
after hearing the sound of firing. His evidence contains material
admissions bearing on his physical position relative to the accused at the
crucial moment, the absence of injury to any of the persons said to have
accompanied him, the belated character of the election-motive
explanation, and the prior settlement of the older family dispute, each of
which is examined further below.

15.   PW-2 Navratan Singh, the brother of the deceased, broadly
supports the prosecution version. He deposed that on 03.08.2005 at
about 08:00 a.m., Harish Chand and Shri Chand were sitting in the
verandah while Veerpal and Khushiram were on the chabutra, and that
the four accused arrived at the kharanja in front of the house. He
attributed rifles to Sukhram and Jeet Raj and 12-bore guns to Aushan
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                                                     CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

Singh and Manuraj Singh, and stated that all four fired upon Veerpal.
According to him, the accused fled after being challenged, and Veerpal
was thereafter taken on a tractor-trolley towards the hospital.

16.   In cross-examination, PW-2 furnished a fairly detailed account of
the route taken to the hospital and thereafter to the police station, but his
account is not free from internal variance: at different points in his
testimony, he described the deceased as having been taken towards the
hospital, as having been declared dead there by a doctor, and as having
thereafter been taken to the police station, with the body being carried in
the same vehicle throughout. He also stated that he, together with Harish
Chand and Shri Chand, could see Veerpal and Khushiram from the place
where they were sitting, a claim that must be tested against PW-1's own
account of the seating and movement of these persons. He acknowledged
the existence of the old enmity between the families but affirmed that no
fresh violent incident had occurred between the parties in the intervening
period. He supported the prosecution's explanation for the absence of
one Shishupal from the scene, stating that Shishupal had already left for
work that morning.

17.   PW-2 also confirmed that Khushiram and Veerpal were discussing
the election because nomination forms were due to be filed that day,
thereby lending some corroboration to PW-1's explanation, though, as
noted, that very explanation is itself a subsequent improvement absent
from the F.I.R. He acknowledged that no independent village witness
had, to his knowledge, been examined by the prosecution despite the
evidently populated character of the locality. He gave evidence regarding
the licensed status of the rifles and 12-bore guns allegedly used. His
testimony, however, also contains discrepancies as to precisely when
Harish Chand and Shri Chand emerged from the house, and as to
whether the individual acts of firing attributed to each of the four
accused were, in fact, specifically communicated to the Investigating
Officer at the time of his statement.
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18.   PW-3, Jawahar Lal, is a formal witness who proved the chik F.I.R.
and the corresponding General Diary entry recording receipt of the
written report. The prosecution relied on his evidence principally to
establish the fact and time of registration of the case and the receipt of
information at the police station.

19.   PW-4, K.C. Bhardwaj, conducted the postmortem examination of
the deceased on 03.08.2005 at about 05:00 p.m. He recorded five ante-
mortem firearm injuries, consisting of multiple firearm pellet entry
wounds over the chest, shoulder and upper limb and the right side of the
body, together with a separate distinct firearm entry injury over the
chest. Internally, multiple ribs were found fractured, both lungs were
damaged, and the heart was injured; metallic projectiles and pellets were
recovered from within the body and were duly exhibited. The medical
evidence conclusively establishes a homicidal death caused by firearm
injuries. It is, however, of central importance to the appellate assessment
that the prosecution did not, at any subsequent stage of the investigation,
establish a reliable forensic connection between the metallic material
recovered from the body and any specific weapon attributed to any of
the appellants, a gap examined further below.

20.   PW-5, Rajendra Prasad Mishra, took over the investigation from
PW-7 on 05.09.2005 and thereafter filed the charge-sheet. His evidence
proves the relevant police documents generated after the transfer of
investigation and the steps taken by him in that capacity, though, being a
successor Investigating Officer, he was naturally unable to speak from
personal knowledge to the events and omissions occurring during the
earlier, more critical phase of the investigation conducted by PW-7.

21.   PW-6, Bharat Singh Yadav, conducted, and in his deposition,
proved the inquest proceedings concerning the deceased, including the
preparation of the inquest report.

22.   PW-7, Raj Narayan Dubey, was the initial Investigating Officer
and, by consequence, the witness whose evidence bears most directly
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upon the several procedural infirmities pressed by the defence. He
deposed that on 03.08.2005, he proceeded upon information received
through the wireless (RT) set, reached Police Station- Bewar at about
8:30 a.m., but neither made an arrival entry at the police station nor
communicated the RT-set information to the Head Moharrir there,
proceeding instead directly to the hospital. He stated that the inquest
was, at that stage, already being prepared. He, thereafter, proceeded to
the place of occurrence, where he prepared the site plan and the
recovered documents referred to above.

23.   In cross-examination, PW-7 made a series of admissions of
considerable significance. He admitted that firing marks were visible on
the walls at the place of occurrence but were not depicted in the site
plan. He admitted that no pellet and no wad was recovered from the spot,
the sole recovery being a single empty cartridge. He admitted that he did
not send the projectiles recovered from the body for forensic ballistic
comparison, and that he similarly did not send the firearms alleged to
have been used for ballistic examination. He further admitted that he did
not record the statement of the doctor who is said to have declared
Veerpal dead at the hospital, explaining this omission by stating that the
F.I.R. itself recorded that the deceased had died on the way to the
hospital rather than after arrival, an explanation that does not, however,
account for the failure to examine the doctor on the question of the
sequence of events at the hospital, a matter that assumed independent
importance in light of the defence version discussed below.

24.   PW-7 further admitted that a General Diary entry indicated that
the dead body was lying at the gate of the police station, whereas he
himself had found the body at the hospital; he candidly conceded that he
did not investigate how the body came to move between the hospital and
the police station, or under whose authority such movement occurred.
He also acknowledged the appearance of a reference to Crime No.
396/2005 in the contemporaneous material, even though the case
ultimately proceeded upon registration as Crime No. 397/2005.
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                                                    CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

25.   PW-7 additionally stated that, during the course of investigation,
he learned that the firearm licensed to Sukhram and the rifle attributed to
Aushan Singh had, prior to the occurrence, been deposited with an arms
dealer or gun house at Etawah. Sukhram's firearm was subsequently
brought and deposited at the police station, but no ballistic examination
of it was thereafter carried out; Aushan Singh's rifle was likewise never
subjected to forensic comparison. PW-7 also acknowledged that he did
not verify Aushan Singh's precise duty location at Farrukhabad by
examining the relevant duty, attendance or movement records
maintained by the police department.

26.   Finally, PW-7 stated that Khushiram had disclosed to him that the
1986 murder of one Ramnaresh had been the origin of the enmity
between the families, but that the parties had subsequently compromised
and, thereafter, lived together without incident. He also recorded, at a
later stage of investigation, the emergence of the election-related motive
concerning rival candidates for the office of Gram Pradhan, a motive
which found no mention either in the F.I.R. or in PW-1's first statement
to him.

27.   After conclusion of prosecution evidence, the statement of the
accused were recorded under Section 313 Cr.P.C., wherein the accused
have denied the prosecution evidence and have stated that they have
been falsely implicated in the case out of old enmity that subsisted
between the families of the informant and them.

28.   Thereafter, the accused examined two witnesses in support of their
contentions.

29.   DW-1, Shri Krishna Singh, described himself as a neighbour of
the deceased and furnished an entirely alternative account of the
occurrence, according to which it was Balram and Shishupal who were
involved in a quarrel with Veerpal, and that the firing took place between
them rather than between Veerpal and the present appellants. He stated
that Veerpal was taken to the hospital, declared dead there, and thereafter
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                                                    CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

taken to the police station, where the body was placed near the gate,
before being taken once again to the hospital on the direction of the
police. This portion of his testimony has a bearing on the chronology of
the movement of the deceased's body, a matter otherwise dependent
upon the admissions of PW-7 and the General Diary entry discussed
above.

30.   However, DW-1's evidence suffers from serious infirmities. He
admitted that no police officer had ever recorded his statement during
the investigation, that he had not himself made any report to the police,
and that he learned only much later that the present accused were the
persons who had been made to face trial. He was, moreover, illiterate,
and stated that the contents of his own affidavit had not been read over to
him before he signed or affirmed it. For these reasons, his testimony
cannot safely be treated as a reliable, independent account establishing
that Balram and Shishupal were the actual assailants. It retains
relevance, however, only to that limited extent, insofar as it touches upon
the chronology of the deceased's movements, a matter capable of
independent testing against the prosecution's own admissions.

31.   DW-2, Lakhan Singh, also furnished an account attributing the
firing to Shishupal and Balram. He admitted, however, that he had never
informed the police of this version at any stage of the investigation. He
came forward to depose only after being informed of the date of hearing
by defence counsel, and after discussions in the village about the alleged
false implication of the accused. His evidence is accordingly
substantially delayed and demonstrably influenced by developments
subsequent to the occurrence, and it cannot be treated as a dependable,
contemporaneous eyewitness account capable of displacing the
prosecution's version.

32.   The defence, drawing upon the admissions extracted from the
prosecution witnesses and upon the infirmities of the investigation, has
advanced the following principal contentions, each of which is examined
on its merits below :
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                                                      CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

i) The F.I.R. was ante-timed and was, in truth, prepared only after
consultation and deliberation among the informant's side, rather than at
the time and in the manner it purports to record.

ii) The inquest material either contains no crime number at all, or bears
the number Crime No. 396 rather than the eventual Crime No. 397,
raising a doubt as to the true sequence in which registration and
investigation proceeded.

iii) The deceased was first taken towards the hospital and, according to
some material, was declared dead there, whereas the police records
simultaneously refer to the body being found at the gate of the police
station, an unexplained and internally inconsistent chronology.

iv) PW-1 was the Headmaster of a school that ordinarily commenced at
7:00 a.m., and his presence at the scene at 8:00 a.m. was never
objectively verified through school attendance or leave records.

v) The election-related motive constitutes a clear improvement upon the
original case, being absent both from the F.I.R. and from PW-1's first
statement to the police.

vi) The prosecution witnesses are closely related to the deceased, and no
independent eyewitness was examined despite the populated character of
the locality in which the occurrence is said to have taken place.

vii) No weapon was recovered pursuant to any pointing-out by the
accused, and no firearm was ever forensically linked with the recovered
cartridge or with the projectiles removed from the body.

viii) The firearms attributed to Sukhram and Aushan Singh had, on the
prosecution's own showing, been deposited with an arms dealer or gun
house at Etawah prior to the occurrence, a circumstance requiring
explanation that the prosecution has not furnished.
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                                                     CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

ix) Aushan Singh was posted at Farrukhabad at the relevant time, and the
Investigating Officer did not verify his exact duty status on the date and
at the hour of the occurrence.

x) The Investigating Officer failed to record the statement of the doctor
who allegedly declared the deceased dead at the hospital, failed to
explain the movement of the body between the hospital and the police
station, and failed to properly document the firing marks observed at the
scene.

xi) The defence has suggested that Shishupal and Balram were the actual
assailants; although this alternative version was not disclosed to the
police at an early stage and suffers from delay, it is submitted that the
prosecution's own case must independently stand or fall on its own
proof, irrespective of the strength or weakness of this alternative theory.

33.      Learned counsel for the State (A.G.A.) has met each of these
contentions with the following broad submissions. It is contended, first,
that an inquest conducted under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure is limited in its purpose to ascertaining the apparent cause of
death and is not substantive evidence bearing upon the guilt of the
accused; consequently, discrepancies internal to the inquest material
cannot, by themselves, be treated as fatal to the prosecution case. It is
submitted, second, that the precise sequence in which the deceased was
taken to the police station or to the hospital, even if not free from
ambiguity, ought not to be treated as destructive of the prosecution
version so long as the F.I.R. and the medical evidence together establish
the fact and cause of the occurrence.

34.      It is further submitted that related witnesses cannot be discarded
merely on account of their relationship to the deceased, since a relative
is, in the ordinary course of events, often the most natural witness to a
crime committed within or near the family home; and that defective
investigation, standing alone, cannot result in an acquittal where credible
ocular evidence is otherwise available on record. The prosecution has
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                                                     CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

additionally relied upon the promptness of the F.I.R., upon the broad
consistency of the accounts given by PW-1 and PW-2 as to the manner
of occurrence, and upon the medical evidence, which conclusively
establishes that the death was homicidal and was caused by firearm
injuries.

35.    The Court is conscious of the settled position that relationship
with the deceased is not, by itself, a ground for the rejection of
testimony; indeed, a related witness may often be the most natural and
immediate witness available to a crime of this nature. Equally, the
absence of independent witnesses does not, without more, necessarily
destroy a prosecution case. The correct approach, well established in the
appreciation of ocular testimony, is to examine whether the evidence
tendered is cogent, internally consistent, and receives reasonable
assurance from the surrounding circumstances and contemporaneous
documents, rather than to apply any rigid or mechanical rule of
exclusion or acceptance based on relationship alone.

36.    Applying that approach to the present record, however, the
concerns are not isolated but cumulative. PW-1's own opportunity to
observe the accused at the critical moment was materially affected by his
admission that his back was turned towards them while the alleged abuse
and threats were being issued, and that he turned to face them only when
the firing had already commenced, after which he ran from the scene.
His presence in the village at an hour when, by his own admission, he
ought ordinarily to have been at his school was never independently or
objectively verified through the available and readily obtainable school
records, notwithstanding that such verification lay well within the reach
of a diligent investigation. His explanation by reference to the Panchayat
election was, on his own admission, a subsequent development, absent
from both the F.I.R. and his first statement to the Investigating Officer.

37.    PW-2 does lend a measure of support to the presence of PW-1 at
the scene, and his account of the broad manner of occurrence is not
without corroborative value. Yet his account of the presence and arrival
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                                                      CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

of Harish Chand and Shri Chand diverges in material respects from that
given by PW-1, and from the account otherwise suggested by the F.I.R.
Neither Harish Chand nor Shri Chand (persons who, on the prosecution's
own case, were in a position to witness the occurrence and were
unrelated, or less closely related, to the deceased than PW-1 and PW-2)
was examined by the prosecution as an independent eyewitness,
notwithstanding the populated character of the locality and the
availability of these individuals.

38.   The Court must further draw a careful distinction between the
broad allegation that four armed persons were present at the scene,
which finds some support in the ocular accounts and in the medical
evidence, and the considerably more specific allegation that each
individual appellant discharged his own weapon and thereby contributed
to the fatal injuries. The prosecution has failed to establish any forensic
link between the weapon attributed to any particular appellant and the
ammunition or projectiles actually recovered. The medical evidence
conclusively establishes that the deceased met a homicidal death by
firearm injury; it does not, and cannot by its own nature, identify the
individual assailants responsible for inflicting that injury.

39.   The promptness with which an F.I.R. is lodged is ordinarily an
important circumstance strengthening the reliability of the prosecution
version, since it reduces the opportunity for embellishment or false
implication. That promptness, however, cannot be assessed merely by
reference to the time recorded on the face of the Chik F.I.R. in isolation;
the surrounding contemporaneous record, including the General Diary
and the conduct of the Investigating Officer in the immediate aftermath,
must equally be considered before the claim of promptness can be
accepted at face value.

40.   In the present case, PW-7's own admissions create a chronology
that has not been satisfactorily explained. He admits to having received
information through the RT set, to having reached the police station at
about 8:30 a.m., and yet to having made no arrival entry there and to
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                                                    CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

having proceeded directly to the hospital without communicating the
information to the Head Moharrir. This, taken together with the General
Diary's reference to the body being found at the gate of the police station
(a location and circumstance inconsistent with PW-7's own account of
finding the body at the hospital) and with his candid admission that he
did not investigate how or under whose authority the body moved
between these two locations, discloses a chronology that remains
materially unresolved on the record as it stands.

41.   The failure to examine the doctor who is said to have declared the
deceased dead at the hospital assumes particular significance in this
context. PW-7 himself admits that such a declaration is alleged to have
occurred, yet the doctor was never examined to clarify the point. The
prosecution cannot, consistently with its own burden, rely upon the
hospital event as forming part of the chronology of the case while
simultaneously leaving unexamined, without satisfactory explanation,
the very witness best placed to speak to that event from
contemporaneous, professional observation.

42.   As to the discrepancy between Crime No. 396/2005 and Crime
No. 397/2005, the Court is mindful that such a discrepancy, viewed in
isolation and in the ordinary run of cases, might properly be regarded as
no more than a clerical slip of no real consequence. In the present case,
however, where ante-timing of the F.I.R. and prior consultation are
specifically and squarely alleged by the defence, the discrepancy cannot
be dismissed in isolation; it must instead be assessed cumulatively,
alongside the other chronological infirmities noted above, as one strand
within a larger pattern that the prosecution has not dispelled.

43.   The old enmity dating to 1986 is established, to a degree, as a
historical fact on the record; neither side has manufactured it or wholly
denied it. The prosecution's own investigative material, however,
indicates that the parties had, in the years following that enmity, arrived
at a settlement and had, thereafter, lived together without further incident
until the date of the present occurrence. The subsequently asserted
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                                                     CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

motive, rivalry arising from the Panchayat election, is, as already noted
above, absent from both the F.I.R. and PW-1's first statement to the
police, and surfaces only at a later stage of the investigation.

44.   In these circumstances, motive cannot be said to be wholly absent
from the case; but neither can it be said to furnish the ocular account any
real measure of independent corroboration. It bears emphasis that the
existence of an old, settled enmity between two families is, by its very
nature, a double-edged circumstance: it is capable of furnishing a motive
for the commission of the crime itself, and it is equally capable of
furnishing a motive for the false implication of persons belonging to the
rival family. Absent independent evidence tilting the balance one way or
the other, motive in the present case must accordingly be treated as, at
best, a neutral circumstance, and at worst, a weak and inconclusive one,
certainly not one capable of shoring up an otherwise doubtful
identification.

45.   The prosecution case attributes rifles specifically to Sukhram and
Jeet Raj, and 12-bore guns specifically to Aushan Singh and Manuraj
Singh. This is a precise and individuated allegation, not a generalised
one, and it was, therefore, incumbent upon the prosecution to support it,
so far as possible, with objective forensic material. No such material
was, however, placed on record. The firearms said to have been used
were never forensically compared with the recovered cartridge or with
the projectiles removed from the deceased's body during postmortem.
The metallic projectiles and pellets recovered from the body were never
sent by PW-7, the Investigating Officer principally responsible for the
collection of evidence, for ballistic examination. Compounding this
omission, the licensed weapons attributed to Sukhram and Aushan Singh
had, on the prosecution's own showing, been deposited with an arms
dealer or gun house at Etawah prior to the date of occurrence, a fact that
called for explanation as to how and when, if at all, those weapons came
back into the appellants' hands in time to be used in the offence; no such
explanation appears on the record.
                                     17
                                                     CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

46.   In these circumstances, no scientifically established chain
connects any particular weapon with the injuries found on the person of
Veerpal Singh. The recovery of a single empty cartridge from the scene
is consequently of limited corroborative value in the absence of any
ballistic comparison, and without such comparison, the cartridge cannot
be said to establish that it was fired from a weapon belonging to, or used
by, any particular appellant. Similarly, while the presence of firearm
injuries on the deceased's body is not in question, the mere fact of such
injuries cannot, without more, establish which among the four named
accused actually caused them. The gap between the general allegation of
joint presence and firing, and the specific allegation of individual
authorship, is thus left substantially unbridged by the forensic evidence,
or, more accurately, by its near-total absence.

47.   Two related but distinct omissions in the investigation merit
separate treatment, since each concerns a fact that was objectively
capable of verification and yet was left unverified by the Investigating
Officer. The first concerns PW-1 Khushiram. The Investigating Officer
did not collect the attendance register or the leave record of the school at
which PW-1 was admittedly serving as Headmaster, in order to
determine whether he was, in fact, present at the school, or on leave, at
the hour of the occurrence. This omission is significant precisely because
the fact was readily verifiable through ordinary institutional records and
staff enquiry, and because PW-1's presence at the scene (as opposed to at
his official post) lies at the very heart of the prosecution's identification
evidence.

48.   The second concerns Aushan Singh. Although it stands admitted
that he was, at the relevant time, posted at Farrukhabad, neither the
prosecution nor the defence placed on record any documentary material
(duty roster, attendance register, or movement record) establishing where
he actually was on the morning of 03.08.2005. Mere proof of posting at
a given station does not, by itself, establish presence at that station at a
specific hour on a specific date, particularly for personnel whose duties
                                    18
                                                      CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

may involve movement away from their nominal place of posting. The
Investigating Officer's failure to verify the duty roster, attendance, and
movement records concerning Aushan Singh is nevertheless a material
investigative omission, for precisely the same reason as in the case of
PW-1: the fact was objectively verifiable and was never verified.

49.   Neither of these two omissions, taken by itself, proves the factual
assertion advanced by either side: the prosecution cannot claim the
benefit of an unverified posting as proof of presence, and the defence
cannot claim the benefit of an unverified school schedule as proof of
absence. Their combined importance lies elsewhere: in the fact that a
prosecution case which depends substantially, if not entirely, upon
eyewitness identification was investigated in a manner that failed to
secure   readily   available   objective   material    capable     of   either
strengthening or weakening that identification evidence, at a stage when
such material could still have been reliably obtained. That failure
operates to the detriment of the case that bears the burden of proof,
namely the prosecution.

50.   The alternative theory advanced through DW-1 and DW-2 (that
Shishupal and Balram, rather than the present appellants, were the actual
assailants) is not independently established on the record. Both defence
witnesses are delayed witnesses who did not disclose their version to the
police during the course of investigation, and whose evidence emerged
only after the passage of considerable time and, in the case of DW-2,
only after discussions in the village and communication with defence
counsel. Their evidence cannot, therefore, be accepted as furnishing a
positive and reliable basis for a finding that Shishupal and Balram were,
in fact, the persons responsible for the death of Veerpal Singh.

51.   It must, however, be emphasized, and this is a point of some
importance to the disposal of the appeal, that the accused are under no
obligation to prove any alternative theory of the crime, or to establish the
identity of an alternative assailant, in order to secure an acquittal. The
burden throughout remains upon the prosecution to prove its own case
                                         19
                                                            CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

against the named appellants beyond reasonable doubt, on the strength of
its own evidence. The weakness of the defence version, standing by
itself, is therefore incapable of curing, and does not in any manner, cure
the deficiencies that independently attend the prosecution's proof, as
discussed above.

52.   The trial court's duty is to adjudicate on the criminal act itself, not
on peripheral irregularities, unless those irregularities directly affect the
fairness or reliability of the prosecution's case :

a) Burden of proof : The prosecution must establish guilt beyond
reasonable doubt; that burden never shifts to the accused, and nothing in
this judgment should be read as diluting it.

b) Peripheral issues : Minor contradictions, investigative lapses, or
procedural irregularities are immaterial unless they go to the root of the
matter, that is, unless they are capable of shaking the Court's confidence
in either the identity of the offender or the basic sequence of events
establishing the offence.

c) Judicial focus : Courts must ensure that justice is not derailed by
"side issues" that do not affect the substantive guilt or innocence of the
accused.

53.   The Court turns to the guiding principle laid down in Gautam Lal
v. State, 1981 Cr.L.J. 1187, which restated, in paragraph 11, a basic rule
of criminal law:

      “An accused can only be convicted when the evidence lets the court
      reach a definite conclusion, beyond reasonable doubt, that he
      committed the offence charged. A conviction can't rest on mere
      possibility, and courts shouldn't guess at what “really” happened. If
      both sides come to court with untrue facts and hide the real truth, that's
      on them — they can't expect the court to reach a firm conclusion on
      evidence that isn't reliable either way. The court will try to separate the
      truth from the falsehood, but only where that's actually possible.
      Sometimes it isn't — particularly where neither side's evidence can be
      safely relied on, even in part. The result may be that the accused gets
      the benefit of the doubt — that can't be helped. The blame for that lies
                                            20
                                                              CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

          with poor investigation and the parties' conduct. In such a case, there's
          no question of a conviction.”




54.       Read together, the "peripheral issues" framework and the Gautam
Lal (supra) principle point in the same direction, but guard against
opposite failures: the former warns against letting minor, non-material
defects defeat an otherwise sound case; the latter warns against
convicting where the evidence, taken as a whole, is genuinely too
unreliable to support a definite conclusion. The task is therefore to locate
each of the defence's grounds, and the preliminary objection, correctly
on this spectrum, asking, for each, whether what is being pointed to is a
peripheral defect that leaves the "grain" of the case intact, or a defect
serious enough to prevent the grain from being separated from the chaff
at all.

55.       It is well settled that a court is not required to examine every
discrepancy in a body of evidence in isolation, nor to treat minor and
natural inconsistencies (inevitable in any human account of a fast-
moving and violent occurrence) as fatal to an otherwise credible case.
The present case, however, is not one of ordinary or minor inconsistency.
It presents a combination of circumstances that, taken together, extend
well beyond the range of discrepancies that a court may properly
overlook. Where a homicidal death by firearm injury is conclusively
established by medical evidence, but the prosecution's identification
evidence rests substantially upon the testimony of related witnesses
whose opportunity of observation and whose very presence at the scene
are themselves subject to material and unresolved doubt, and where the
investigation additionally fails to secure readily available objective
corroboration, such as school-attendance or duty records capable of
independently verifying the presence of key witnesses, ballistic
examination capable of linking a weapon to the crime, a coherent and
internally consistent F.I.R./General Diary chronology, and reliable
documentation of the movement of the dead body, the cumulative effect
                                    21
                                                    CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

of these deficiencies may properly give rise to a reasonable doubt as to
the participation of the accused in the offence charged. In such
circumstances, the fact that the defence has not conclusively established
an alternative assailant does not, and cannot, substitute for proof by the
prosecution beyond reasonable doubt, which remains the prosecution's
own and non-transferable burden throughout.

56.   These circumstances include: the disputed and unverified presence
of the principal informant-witness at a time when he ought, by his own
admission, to have been elsewhere; the subsequent and unexplained
emergence of the election motive, absent from the earliest version of
events; the absence of any independent eyewitness despite a populated
locality; material differences between PW-1 and PW-2 as to the arrival
of other named witnesses; the unexplained movement of the dead body
between the hospital and the police station; the unresolved police-
station/General Diary chronology; the Crime No. 396/397 discrepancy,
assessed cumulatively rather than in isolation; the failure to examine the
doctor who allegedly pronounced death at the hospital; the failure to
verify readily available school-attendance and police-duty records; the
complete absence of ballistic examination; the consequent absence of
any forensic weapon linkage; and the unexplained pre-occurrence
deposit of the alleged firearms with an arms dealer at Etawah.

57.   Taken together, these circumstances do not merely demonstrate an
investigation that fell short of an ideal or exhaustive standard, a
deficiency that, by itself, would rarely justify interference with an
otherwise sound conviction. They operate, cumulatively, to substantially
reduce the independent assurance that would ordinarily be required
before the ocular testimony of related witnesses could safely be accepted
as sufficient, by itself, to sustain a conviction for murder founded on
common intention. The medical evidence conclusively proves that the
deceased suffered a homicidal death by firearm injury; it does not,
however, and cannot by its nature, establish the identity or the individual
participation of the present appellants in the causing of that death. The
                                    22
                                                    CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

weakness and delayed character of the defence evidence, for the reasons
already given, cannot substitute for, or cure, this deficiency in the
prosecution's own proof.

58.   Upon a cumulative appreciation of the entire evidence on record,
this Court is satisfied, and so holds, that the prosecution has proved
beyond reasonable doubt that Veerpal Singh died a homicidal death as a
result of firearm injuries sustained on 03.08.2005. The Court is not,
however, satisfied that the prosecution has established beyond
reasonable doubt that the present appellants (Sukhram, Aushan Singh
and Jeet Raj) were the persons who, acting in furtherance of their
common intention, caused that death. That benefit of doubt, on settled
principle, must enure to the accused. It bears reiteration that the defence
version need not itself be established as a positive and proven fact
where, as here, the prosecution has failed to cross the threshold of proof
beyond reasonable doubt on its own evidence.

59.   The Criminal Appeal No. 1872 of 2007 is hereby, allowed. The
judgment and order dated 26.02.2007 passed by the Additional Sessions
Judge, Fast Track Court No. 1, Mainpuri, in Sessions Trial No. 86 of
2006, State of UP Vs. Sukhram & others , convicting Sukhram, Aushan
Singh and Jeet Raj under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian
Penal Code, and sentencing them to imprisonment for life together with
fine, is set aside. The appellants are acquitted of the charge under
Section 302 read with Section 34 I.P.C., the benefit of doubt being
extended to them. Their bail bonds, if any, shall stand discharged, subject
to compliance with the applicable statutory requirement concerning the
furnishing of bonds for appearance before the higher court, if and to the
extent required by law.

60.   It is clarified that the present adjudication is confined strictly to
Criminal Appeal No. 1872 of 2007. No finding recorded in this judgment
shall prejudice the independent adjudication of Criminal Appeal No.
7002 of 2011 preferred by appellant, Manuraj Singh, including the
determination of his pending claim of juvenility. That appeal shall be
                                                              23
                                                                             CRLA No. - 1872 of 2007

                            decided independently, on the evidence and the legal issues arising
                            therein, uninfluenced by any observation made herein.




                                                          (Achal Sachdev,J.) (Atul Sreedharan,J.)

                            Septemer 8, 2026
                            KS




Digitally signed by :-
KISHAN SINHA
High Court of Judicature at Allahabad