Holding

The High Court erred in its appreciation of the evidence and the appeal is allowed, convicting the accused.

Summary

The respondent, a union secretary, allegedly fired a pistol at a company manager outside an industrial tribunal, killing him. Three eye‑witnesses (PWs 5, 6 and 7) testified that they saw the shooting and that the accused was seized by them and the police. A cryptic telephonic message about the firing was sent to the police but did not name the assailant, and the High Court held this as a fatal defect, acquitting the accused. The Supreme Court held that a telephonic message is not a FIR and that the High Court had erred in its appreciation of the reliable eyewitness testimony and in applying different standards to prosecution and defence evidence. It further found that the High Court’s conclusions about the accused’s failure to escape and the visibility of the incident were unrealistic. Consequently, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the acquittal and convicted the respondent under s.302 IPC and s.25(1)(a) of the Arms Act.

Issues considered

Whether the Supreme Court may interfere with a High Court's appreciation of evidence in a criminal case.
Whether a cryptic telephonic message can be treated as a First Information Report under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
How the credibility of interested witnesses should be assessed.
Whether the High Court applied a consistent standard to the evidence of prosecution and defence.
Whether the High Court erred in concluding that the accused did not attempt to escape after the shooting.

Legislation cited

Subjects

murderevidence appraisaltelephonic messageFIRwitness credibilityappellate jurisdictionSupreme Court interferenceIndian Penal CodeArms Act

Judgment

1 A

STATE OF U.P.

v
B
P.A. MAOHU

17 July, 1984

[S. MURTAZA FAZAL ALI, A. VARADARAJAN AND SABYASACHI
MUKHARJI, JJ.] c
Constitution of India-Art. 136-Supreme Court-When woufd Interfere
·with the appreciation of evidence by the High Cpurt.

Code ofCrim;nal Procedure-S. 154-FJR-Cryptlc information on phone D
to police-Cannot be treated as FIR-Being first in point oftims make no diffe-
rence-Name of assailant not mentioned in telephonic message-Whether
discredits prosecution case .
•
The respondent, Secretary of the workers union of a construction
company, D.W. 1, Vice-President of the Union, the deceased and P.Ws. S and
7. officers of the company and P.W. 6, standing counsel of the company were E
all coming out of the office of an industrial tribunal after filing their written
statements in a dispute raised by· the workers. The prosecution cas~ was
that at the main gate of the tribunal's building the respondent suddenJy star-
ted firing from a pistol and shot dead the deceased. As firing was going on,
a telephonic message conveying the fact that gunshots were being fired was
sent to the nearby police station. On receipt of the telephonic message the F
police arrived ;t the sp,t, seized the pistol and took the respondent and some
of the witnes4'es to the police station where a formal FIR was registered. The
Session.i Judge conv.icted the accused under s. 302 IPC ands. 25 (1) (a) of
Indian Arms Act and sentenced him to life imprisonment and one Years'
rigorous imprisonment respectively. On appeal the High Court reversed the.
judgment of the Sessions Judge. The High Court observed that if P.W. 7
had given the telephonic message, as stated by D.W. 1, he would have men .. G
tioned the name ·or the assailant because he was a fu11-f1edged eye-witness but
since his name had not been mentioned it was the strongest possible circum-
stance to discredit the prosecution case. Hence this appeal.

A11owing the appeal,
H
HELD ; Normally this Court does not interfere against the judgment of
2 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1985] 1 s.c.R.
~he High ?curt pur~I! on. appreciatio'n of evidence, But this Court would
I~terfere with the drc1s1on ot the High Court if there appear to be very special
c1~cumstances Which have been ei:her overlooked or not considered by the
High Court or the High Court does not appear to have examined the intrinsic
merits of the evidence of the witnesses but has proceeded to acquit the accused
on general grounds which are wholly untenable. [5B-C)
B
A cryptic information on telephone has been held by this Court to be of
no value at all, The mere fact that the information was the first in point of
tjme does not by itself clothe it with the character of first information report.

Tapinder Singh v. State of Punjab, [1971) I SCR 599, referred to.
c In the instant case the telephonic message was an extremely cryptic one
and could not be regarded as a FIR in any sense of the tern1,

The High Court has applied two different standards to assess the evi-
dence of the prosecution and that of the defence. While the High Court
accepts the uncorroborated evidence of D. W. 1 who is as much interested in
D
the dispute as the deceased, if not inore, being Vice-President of the Union
and also in possession of the brief case of the respondent, yet it disbelieves the
evidence of P.Ws. 5 and 7 mainly on the ground that they were highly interes·
ted. (7H; SA-BJ
•
The High Court completely lost sight of two important facts-(!) that
E P .Ws. 5 and 7 were high officers of the company and were not likely to
depose falsely on a matter like this, and (2) that P.W. 6, who was the standing
eounsel of the company and other labour cases for more than 3 decades, fully
corroborates the evidence of P, Ws. 5 and 7. We have examined the evidence
of P.Ws. 5 and 7 with very great care and caution but we are un'able to find
anY discrepancy or defect in their evidence so as to lead any court to reject the
F same. [BE-Fl

The finding of the High Court that it is difficult 10 believe that after the
respondent threw the pistol he continued to remain at the spot and did not
make any attempt to escape is also most lnnrealistic. There is clear evjdence
of P.Ws. 5, 6 and 7 that after the responcent threw down the pistol he was
surrounded by the three witnesses so that he could not e~cape. The High
0 Court has failed to consider this important aspect of the matter. Moreover~
if a perscn ~ommits a cold-blooded murder in the premises of a court which is
bound to be full of other litigants also, he cannot lhink of escaping and is
bound to be caught by some one: or the other. [9A-C]

Relying on the evidence of D.W. 1, the conctus.ion reached by the High
B Court that it is exteremelY doubtful that the witnesses could see the incident
-=-rrominside the court room as there was~no door or wipdow t}lrough which,
U.P. STATE v. P.A. MADU (Fazal Ali, J.) 3

the incident could be seen is purely speculative and against the weight of A
evidence on record. The evidence of D.W. 1 who was a highly interested
witness, should not have been acted upon in the pec,1Jiar facts and circum-
stances of this case unless corroborated by independent evidence. [9D; F-G]

The High Court seems to have completely overlooked the fact that
there was no reason for the three eye-witnesses, one of whom was a standing B
counsel for about 30 years, to have falsely implicated the respondent merely
becau~e he was Secretary of the Union. The consistent course of conduct of
the respondent speaks volumes against liis innocence. He was caught redhan-
ded at the spot and was surrounded bY the Witnesses so that he could not
escape, and the police arrived within fifteen minutes of the occurrence and
took him to the police station. [9H; IOA]
c
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal Appeal No.
611 of 1981.

Appeal by Special leave from the Judgment and Order dated
the 6th February, 1981 of the Allahabad High Court in Cr!.
Appeal No. 11478 of 1980. D

Da/veer Bhandari, H.M. Singh and Ranbir Singh Yadav for
the Appellant.

R.L. Kholi and Girish Chandra for the Respondent.
E
Ram Jethmalani, Ms. Rani Jethmalani and S.B. Jethmalani
for the Intervenor.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

FAzAL ALI, J. Our hard-won freedom from British yoke F
ushered in a new era of progress and prosperity resulting in setting
up or a large number of industries of all sorts and· kinds in various
spheres, some of them being Government conttOlled and some of
• them in the private sector. Labour and industrial laws of the
country passed after independence created a sense of new awake-
ning in the labour force which became more and)nore conscious of G
the rights and privileges conferred on them by the laws. Although
disputes between the labour and management is now a common
feature of the industrial life of the country yet seldom in the
history of industrial disputes has it ever happened that a dispute
assumed such large proportions as to take the toll of a human
H
life resulting in a cold-blooded murder in broad day light and that
too in a court premises.
4 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1985) 1 S.C.R.

Such an extraordinary event is the suhject·matter of this
appeal by special leave against the judgment of the Allahabad
High Court where a Secretary of the labour Union seems to have
run amuck and fired several shorts by a couri!ry·made pistol shots
on an officer of the management and killed him at the spot.
B

The facts of the case have been detailed in the judgment of
the learned Sessions Judge and the High Court and need not be
repeated. The matter, therefore, lies within a narrow compass
and we purpose only to examine the reasons and the inferences
c drawn by the High Court for acquitting the respondent, Madhu.

M/s. Hindustan Construction Company (hereinafter referred
to as the 'company'), had undertaken the construction of Jamima
Hyde! Project in Khadar, District Dehradun.
D
To begin with, it appears that there was some dispute about
· the dearness allowance claim of the labour from the management
which was referred to the Industrial Tribunal. The respondent,
who was the Secretary of the Union, was looking after the case on
behalf of the workers, while PWs 5 and 7 were the officers appear-
E
ing on behalf of the management before the Tribunal. The
deceased, S.J. Sirgaonkar, was Deputy Personnel Manager of the
Bombay Branch of M/s. Hindustan Construction Company. He
was shot dead by the respondent after he (deceased), alongwith
the other officers of the management, had come out of the
F Tribunal's office at Meerut after filing their written statements.
Thereafter one of the eye-witnesses, S.K. Gui (PW 7) asked
someone to give a telephone call to the police station, which was·
nearby, on receipt of which the police arrived at the spot, seized
. the pistol and took the accused and some of the witnesses to the
police station where a formal FIR was registered. The Pancha-
G nama was prepared and other formalities were, however, done at
the spot.

The learned Sessions Judge, after a careful consideration of
the evidence of the three main eye-witnesses (PWs 5, 6 and 7) as
.H ·also the evidence of Durga Das (DW I), came to a clear conclu-
sion that the prosecution case against the respondent was fully
proved and accordingly he convicted the respondent uncler
ti.E'. STATE V. P.A. M·\1JHlJ (Fazal Ali, ],)

s.302, I.P.C. and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. He A
also convicted the respondent under s. 25(l)(a) of th~ Indian Arms
Act and sentenced him to one year's R.l. The respondent went
up in appeal to the High Court agaimt the decision of the
Sessions Judge which was reversed by the High Court and the
respondent was acquitted of the charges framed against him.
B

Normally, this Court does not interfere against the judgment
of a High Court purely on appreciation of evidence. But, in this
case, there appears to be very special circumstances which have
been either overlooked or not considered by the High Court.
Besides this, the High Court does not appear to have examined 0
the intrinsic merits of the evidence of the witnesses but has
proceeded to acquit the respondent on general grounds which,
we shall show hereafter, are wholly untenable.

It appears that July 5, 1977 was the date fixed in the Indus-
D
trial Tri bun a), Meerut for the parties to file their written statements
and in this connection the deceased alongwith the other eye-wit-
nesses (PWs 5, 6 and 7) attended the Tribunal and PWs 5 and 7
filed their written statements. P.W. 6 was Cthe standing counsel.
of the Company and had been representing the same in all
labour disputes concerning the Company. The respondent was E
holding the post of hydel lineman of the Project and was the
Secretary of the labour Union. DW I, Durga Das, who was
also at the spot was the Vice-President of the said Union.

It appears that after filing the written statements at about
11. 30 a.m. the witnesses and the respondent came out of the F
court premises and were talking between themselves. As soon as
the respondent and Sirgaonkar (the deceased) reached the
main gate of the Tribunal building, the respondent is alleged to
have taken out a country-made pistol and fired five shots one
after the other in quick succession, with the result tbat Sirgaonkar
fell down and died at the spot. Thereafter, the respondent threw G
away the pistol but he was surrounded by the witne1ses and later
handed over to the police on their arrival. It is also alleged by
the prosecution that while the firing was going on a telephonic
message was sent to the police station Civil Lines, Meerut about
the firing and it was received by MasrQor Ali, PW 9, who made
H
an entry to that effect in the general diary at
11.39 a.m. The
telephonic information merely conveyed the fact that gunshots
6 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1985] ! S.C.R.
A
were being fired. On receipt of the information, PW-10. Ram
Datt Gautam, the Sub-Inspector of Police, proceeded to the place
of occurrence and found the body of Sirgonkar lying outside the
main gate of the Tribunal building and lhe 1espondent being
apprehended by the witnesses. The police officer took the
B accused into custody and proceeded to the police station along-
with PW 7, S.K. Gui, where a regular FIR was registered. The
usual proceedings about the post-mortem and inquest the follo-
wed '&nd after a thorough investigation the police submitted a
,•
chargesheet against the respondent which resulted in his convic-
tion by the Sessions Judge. This, in short, is the prosecution case.
c ..
The main grounds on which the High Court has reversed
the judgment of the Sessions Judge may be summarised as follows :

Durga Das, DW I who was admittedly at the scene of the
D occurrence bas stated that as the shooting started, PW 7 bad
given a telephonic message to the police station. The High Court
by an implied process of reasoning has observed that if PW 7 had
given the telephonic message he would have mentioned the name
of the assailant because he was a full-fledged eye witness but
E since bis name bad not been mentioned it is the strongest possible
circumstance to discredit the prosecution case. We are, however,
unable to agree with this somewhat involved reasoning of the
High Court. In fact, DW I merely says that Gui telephoned to
the poolice station about the firing and said something in English,
The High Court seems to have presumed that from this the
F irresistible inference to be drawn is that Gui did not mention the
name of the assailant of the deceased and on this ground alone
the prosecution must fail. This argument is based on a serious
error. In the first place, the telephonic message was an extre-
mely cryptic one and could not be regarded as a FIR in any sense
of the term. Secondly, assuming that Gui had given the tele-
G
phonic message in utter chaos and confusion when shots after
shots were being fired at the deceased, there was no occassion for
Gui to have narrated the entire story of the occurrence. In fact,
in his evidence Gui has denied that he personally telephoned
the police but he stated that he asked somebody to telephone
H the police which appears t@ be hoth logical and natural. Moreover
such a cryptic information on telephone has been held by this
U.P. STA1'E I'. P.A. MAOHU (Pazal Ali, J.) 1
Court to be of no value at all. In Tapindar Singh v. State of A
Punjab(') this Court in identical circumstances observed thus :

"The telephone message was received by Hari Singh,
A.SJ., Police Station, City Kotwali at 5.35 p.m. on
September 8, 1969. The person conveying the infor-
B
mation did not disclose his identity, nor did he give any
other particulars and al! that is said to have been
conveyed was that firing had taken place at the taxi
stand, Ludhiana. This was, of course, recorded in the
daily diary of the police station by the police officer
responding to the telephone call. But prime facie this c
cryptic and anonymous oral message which did not in
terms clearly specify a cognizable offence cannot be
treated as first information report The mere fact that
this information was the fi1 st in point of time does not
by itself clothe it with the character of first information
report." D

Jn view of this decision, therefore, the fundamental
reasoning of the High Court falls to the ground. Moreover,
' Durga Das himself does not appear to be an independent witness
but he was highly interested because being the Vice-President of
the labour Union he was looking after the case in the Industrial E
Tribunal on behalf of the workers. There is clear evidence of
prosecution witnesses that even the brief case of the respondent
was handled by DW I at the time of the occurrence. Although
DW I denied this fact, it is amply proved by the evidence of
PW-5. The only comment made against this witness was that he
did not state this fact before the investigating officer. But, as F
this.was a matter of detail it may not have been necessary for
him to have stated all possible details in his statement to the police.
This witness is corroborated by PW 6, an independent witness,
who says that the brief case of the respondent was being carried by
Durgu Das. It, therefore, appears that DW I being the Vice- G
President of the Union and a pairvikar of the workers was highly
interested and in the face of the evidence of independent witness
like PW-6, there is no reason to disbelieve the evidence of PW 5
that the brief case of the respondent was being handled by DW I.

We might state here that the High Court has applied two .H

(1}[1975) 1 SCR 643.
s SUPREME COURt REPORTS (1985) l s.c.R
A
different standards to assess the evidence of the prosecution and
that of the defence. While the High Court accepts the uncorro-
borated evidence of OW l, who is as much interested in the "\
dispute as the deceased, if not more, being Vice-President of the
Union and also in possession of the brief case of the respondent,
B yet it disbelieves the evidence of PWs 5 and 7 mainly on the
ground that they were highly interested. The relevant finding of
the High Court on this point may be extracted thus :
,
"In the first place, it shows that Subrat Kumar Gui
c and M.R. Bhaumik were mainly responsible for the
prosecution of the case, although the deceased bad been
in genaral supervision of all labour disputes of the
company at all the places. In the second place, it also
points out that these two witnesses were not happy with
the appellant who had been representing the cause of
'
D the labourers before the Industrial Tribunal and that they
were sore about his conduct. In these circumstances
these two witnesses could not be said to be independent."

Here, the High Court completely lost sight of two important
E facts-(1) that PWs 5 and 7 were high officers of the Company and
were not likely to depose falsely on a matter like this, and
(2) that PW-6, who was the standing counsel of the Company and
other labour cases for more than 3 decades, fully corroborates the
evidence of PWs 5 and 7. We have examined the evidence of
PWs 5 and 7 with very great care and caution but we are unable
F to find any discrepancy or defect in their evidence so as to lead
any court to reject the same. On the other hand, on a considera-
tion of their evidence, we are satisfied that are throughout
consistent and congruous and that their evidence bears a ring of
truth. We are indeed surprised how the High Court could dis-
G believe the evidence of the eye-witnesses in the case of a cold-
blooded murder committed·in broad day light where the respondent
was caught red-handed at the spot. The High Court also over-
looked the crying conduct of the respondent who went on firing
one shot after the other so as to make sure that Sirgaonkar does
not survive at any cost.
H
Another ground on which the High Court has reversed the
U.P. StATE 'v. P.A. MADHU (Faza/ Ali, J.) 9
judgment of the Sessions Judge is that it is difficult to believe
that after the respondent threw the pistol he continued to remain
at the spot and did not make any attempt to escape. With due
respect, this finding of the High Court is also most unrealistic.
Tl!~re is clear evidence of PWs 5, 6 and 7 that after the respondent
threw down the pistol he was surrounded by the three witnesses
so that he could not escape. The High Court has failed to
consider this important aspect of the matter. Moreover, if a
person commits a cold-blooded murder in the premises of a court
which is bound to be full of other litigants also, he cannot think
of escaping and is bound to be caught by someone or the other.
c
The High Court was further of the view that it is extremely
doubtful that the witnesses could see the incident from inside the
court room as there was no door or window through which the
incident could be seen. To buttress this observation, the High
<;ourt seems to have relied on the evidence of DW 1 that the
four persons, including DW 1, entered the co.urt room as soon
D
as the first shot was fired. This statement is obviously wrong
because all the three witnesses stated that the shots were fired
while they were outside tile court room and they actually saw the
respondent firing the shots. It was only after a few shots were
fired that they entered the court room and even so they were able E
to see the whole occurrence from the glass panes of the court
room. There is absolutely no evidence on record to show that
there were no glass panes in tho window and that the place of
occurrence could not be visible from the court room. In these
circumstances the conclusion of the High Court is purely specula-
tive and against the weight of evidence on the record. F

The High Court seems to have placed some relience on the
evidence of DW 1 but as he was highly interested, his evidence
unless corroborated by independent evidence should not have
been acted upon in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this
G
case.

Lastly, the High Court seems to have completely overlooked
the fact that there was no reason for three eye-witnesses, one of
whom was a standing counsel far about 30 years, to have falsely
implicated the respondent merely because he was Secretary of the H
Union .. The consistent course of conduct of the respondent
speaks volumes against bis innocence. He was caught red-handed
10 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1985] 1 S.C.R.
A
at the spot and was surrounded by the witnesses so that he could
not escape, and the police arrived 'within fifteen minutes of the
occurrence and took him to the police station. Some comment
was made by the High Court about the delay in the inquest report
but that does not appear to be of any consequence if the evidence
B of the three eye-witnesses is to be believed.
We have given our anxious consideration to the evidence of
the three witnesses (PWs 5, 6 and 7) and we find ourselves in
complete agreement with the Sessions Judge that these witnesses
were both reliable and trustworthy. In fact, the High Court
committed a grave error of law in not going into the intrinsic
c merits of the evidence of each of the eye-witnesses and in discar-
ding the same on general grounds which also have no substance.
For the reasons given above, we are satisfied that this is not
a case in which it could be said by any stretch of imagination that
another reasonable view may be possible on the evidence and
D
circumstances of the case, viz. that the accused was innocent. The
result is that the appeal is allowed, the jucgment of the High Court
is oet aside and the appellant is convicted under s.302 of the
Indian Panel Code to imprisonment for life as also under s.25(I}(a)
of the Indian Arms Act to one year's R.I. because he was undoub·
E tedly found using a country made pistol which was recovered from
the place of occurrence. /

H.S.K. Appeal allowed,