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State Of M.P v. Nisar .
Factual and Procedural Background
Two graziers, Kandhai and Chherkoo, failed to return home one evening along with a he-goat belonging to Sitaram. A search party found the goat in Village Karhitola at the house of Barelal (PW-4), where the respondent-accused Nisar had sought overnight shelter. Questioned by the villagers, the accused allegedly made an extra-judicial confession that he had killed both men when they tried to stop him from taking the goat.
Bhaiyalal lodged the First Information Report (Exh. P-1) the next morning after Kandhai’s body was discovered; Chherkoo’s body was recovered later the same day on information said to have been given by the accused. An axe, claimed to be the murder weapon, was seized at Nisar’s instance.
The Additional Sessions Judge in ST No. 44 of 1988 convicted Nisar under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. On appeal, a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court found the evidence unreliable—particularly the extra-judicial confession and the weapon recovery—and acquitted him. The State of Madhya Pradesh appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging the High Court’s acquittal.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the extra-judicial confession and the recovery of an axe allegedly stained with human blood constituted reliable and sufficient circumstantial evidence to sustain the conviction under Section 302 IPC.
- Whether the Madhya Pradesh High Court erred in reversing the trial court’s conviction and directing the respondent’s acquittal.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant (State)
- The trial court correctly relied on the respondent’s extra-judicial confession made before PW-4, which was voluntary and unequivocal.
- The recovery of the axe at the accused’s instance, coupled with the chemical examiner’s report indicating human blood on it, corroborated the confession and linked the respondent to the murders.
- The High Court disregarded these crucial pieces of evidence without adequate justification.
Respondent
This information was not available in the provided opinion.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Supreme Court noted critical gaps undermining the prosecution’s theory:
- The FIR was lodged after the alleged confession, yet contained no mention of it. The Court found the informant’s explanation—that he “forgot” to disclose the confession—“totally improbable and wholly unacceptable.”
- Both bodies and associated articles (lathi, khomari, axe) lay close together in open terrain; therefore, no “disclosure” by the accused was necessary to locate them. This weakened the evidentiary value of the recovery.
- Although human blood was found on the seized axe, the blood group was never ascertained, preventing any firm linkage between the weapon and the deceased.
- Given that the prosecution case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, these deficiencies rendered the chain of circumstances incomplete.
Concluding that the High Court correctly appreciated these weaknesses, the Supreme Court held there was no ground to interfere with the acquittal.
Holding and Implications
Appeal Dismissed — Acquittal Affirmed.
The respondent’s acquittal stands, and the trial court’s conviction remains set aside. The decision affects only the parties to this case and does not articulate any new legal principle or precedent.
Dr. Arijit Pasayat, J.— Challenge in this appeal is to the order of a Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, setting aside the judgment of conviction recorded by the trial court by a learned Additional Sessions Judge in ST No. 44 of 1988 and directed acquittal of the respondent. The accused faced trial for offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short “the Code”).
2. Background facts in a nutshell are as follows:
The case, as presented at the trial was that Kandhai and Chherkoo did not return home in the evening. A he-goat of Sitaram was also missing. The search party located the he-goat in Village Karhitola in the house of Barelal (PW 4). Accused Nisar had sought shelter for the night at Barelal's house and had brought the he-goat with him. On being questioned, the accused admitted having killed Kandhai because the latter had abused him when he was taking away the he-goat. He also confessed the murder of Chherkoo whose body was recovered at his instance.
3. The first information report (Ext. P-1) was lodged by Bhaiyalal next morning, after recovery of the body of Kandhai. The body of Chherkoo was recovered during the course of the day on the information given by accused Nisar during investigation. The usual investigation followed, and in due course the accused was tried for the offences as already described above. The trial resulted in conviction on all heads of charge.
4. The accused challenged the conviction before the High Court.
5. Before the High Court, it was urged that the conviction was based on surmises and conjectures. The so-called extra-judicial confession has no foundation. The accused, who was a casual passer-by and had taken shelter in the house of Barelal in the night has been made a scapegoat for the blind murder of the two graziers.
6. Learned counsel for the State submitted that the trial court has analysed the evidence and after drawing proper inference, has found the accused guilty.
7. The High Court found that there was no eyewitness to the incident. Two factors which weighed with the trial court were the so-called recovery of an axe and the extra-judicial confession. It was noticed by the High Court that there was no reference to the extra-judicial confession in the FIR and though blood was stated to have been found on the axe recovered, the blood grouping was not done. Accordingly, the trial court's judgment was set aside and acquittal was directed.
8. In support of the appeal, learned counsel for the State submitted that the extra-judicial confession had been rightly relied upon by the trial court and the High Court should not have discarded the evidentiary value of the extra-judicial confession. Similarly, the axe was recovered at the instance of the accused and, therefore, the High Court's conclusions are erroneous.
9. It is to be noted that the first information report was lodged much after the so-called extra-judicial confession was made. Evidence on record shows that the body of Kandhai was lying exposed in the jungle and his lathi and khomari were lying close by. In the FIR (Ext. P-1), there was no reference to the so-called confession by the accused. Informant Bhaiyalal's explanation that he may have forgotten to disclose this fact to the police while lodging the FIR, is totally improbable and wholly unacceptable. If in fact there was any confession as claimed that would have been the first thing to be mentioned and not that there was suspicion of the accused being the assailant. Raghvendra Singh Baghel, PW 12 had admitted that the body of Chherkoo was lying about 100 paces from the dead body of Kandhai. The High Court rightly noticed that no disclosure was necessary for locating the dead body. The axe and the khomari were also lying close by and even a casual search would have revealed the dead bodies and the articles. The chemical examiner in his report Ext. P-37 had found that the axe was stained with human blood. Curiously, the blood group was not ascertained. It was, therefore, not possible to conclude that the axe was used for killing the two deceased persons.
10. Above being the nature of evidence of prosecution witnesses, the High Court was perfectly justified in finding the prosecution version vulnerable, and the evidence scanty to fasten the guilt on the accused in a case where the prosecution version rests on circumstantial evidence.
11. There is no scope for interference in this appeal which is, accordingly, dismissed.
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