State of Haryana Vs. Shakuntla
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Head Note
Criminal Laws - Benefit of alibi
Benefit of alibi - Contention on behalf of accused that they did not form unlawful assembly and had no common intention to kill - Contention repelled.
Indian Penal Code,1860 - Section 149 , Section 141
Unlawful Assembly - An "assembly" is a company of persons assembled together in a place, usually for a common purpose - Wherever five or more persons commit a crime with a common object and intent, then each of them would be liable for commission of such offence, in terms of Sections 141 and 149 Indian Penal Code.
Indian Penal Code,1860 - Section 149 , Section 141
Unlawful assembly - Essentially has two ingredients, one, that the offence must be committed by any member of unlawful assembly consisting of five or more members and second, such offence must be committed in prosecution of the common object under Section 141 Indian Penal Code of the assembly or such as the members of that assembly knew was likely to be committed in prosecution of the common object - It is not necessary that there should be a prior concert in the sense of a meeting of mind of the members of the unlawful assembly - The common object may form on the spur of the moment.
Indian Penal Code,1860 - Section 302 , Section 149
Murder Case - Relation witness - Accused convicted on basis of evidence of son of deceased - Nine accused persons committing double murder - Victims were husband as wife - Son of deceased and another witness were present at the time of incident - Accused and deceased families had animosity for about 8 years - No challenge to vital facts - Presence of both the P.Ws. at the place of occurrence was natural and their statements are trustworthy corroborated by other evidence and do not suffer from the vice of suspicion or uncertainty - The Court has to give credence to their statement as they have lost their close relations and have no reason to falsely implicate the accused persons, who are also their relations - Nine accused convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by trial Court, High Court affirmed the sentence of 6 only - Conviction and sentence upheld.
The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 - Section 378
Appeal against acquittal - Principles regarding power of appellate Court while dealing with appeal as summed - (1) An appellate court has full power to review, reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded. (2) The Code of Criminal Procedure , 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law. (3) Various expressions, such as, "substantial and compelling reasons", "good and sufficient grounds", "very strong circumstances", "distorted conclusions", "glaring mistakes", etc. are not intended to curtail extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal - Such phraseologies of language" to emphasise the reluctance of an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion. (4) An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal, there is double presumption in favour of the accused - Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law - Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial court. (5) If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.
The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 - Section 134
Criminal trial - It is not the quantity, but the quality of evidence that has to be taken into consideration by the Court while deciding such matters.
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