Mohinder Singh vs The State
Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.
Court: Supreme Court of India
Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 10 of 1950
Decision Date: 17 October 1950
Coram: Saiyid Fazal Ali, B.K. Mukherjea, N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar
On 17 October 1950 the Supreme Court of India rendered its judgment in the case titled Mohinder Singh versus The State. The judgment was authored by Justice Saiyid Fazal Ali and the bench was composed of Justices Saiyid Fazal Ali, B.K. Mukherjea and N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar. The parties were identified as the petitioner Mohinder Singh and the respondent The State. The decision was recorded under the citation 1953 AIR 415 and 1950 SCR 821, with additional references to subsequent citator entries such as R 1963 SC 340, D 1963 SC 612, RF 1963 SC 1511, F 1975 SC 1727, and F 1977 SC 472. The judgment addressed issues arising under the Indian Penal Code, specifically sections 302 and 307 read with section 34, concerning a criminal trial for murder wherein injuries were allegedly caused by a lethal weapon.
The Court observed that when a death results from injuries inflicted by a lethal weapon, it is incumbent upon the prosecution to establish, through expert testimony, that the injuries could have been caused by the weapon alleged. In the present murder case, the prosecution’s case asserted that the accused had shot the deceased with a gun; however, the medical evidence suggested that the wounds were more consistent with those produced by a rifle. Moreover, the nature of the injuries indicated that more than one firearm might have been involved, yet no competent expert had been called to verify the type of weapon, nor was there any evidence presented to demonstrate the participation of another shooter. Despite recognizing a gap in the prosecution’s case, the High Court had relied upon the oral testimony of three witnesses, whose credibility was not fully independent, to sustain the conviction. The Supreme Court held that this conviction fell within the principle articulated in Pritam Singh v. The State (1959 S-C-R 453), whereby a conviction cannot stand when material evidence is lacking. Consequently, the Court declared that the conviction could not be upheld. Additionally, the Court clarified that the standard of proof required for an alibi defence must be identical to the standard applied to the prosecution’s evidence; in both instances the proof must reach a reasonable level of certainty.
The judgment arose from Criminal Appeal No. 10 of 1950, which was filed by special leave against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab delivered by Justices Falshaw and Soni on 30 December 1949. That High Court judgment had affirmed the conviction of the appellant under sections 302 and 307 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and had confirmed the death sentence imposed by the Sessions Judge of Ferozepore on 20 July 1949 in Criminal Appeal Case No. 325 of 1949. Counsel for the appellant was represented by Jai Gopal Sethi, assisted by R.L. Kohli. The Supreme Court, after examining the evidentiary deficiencies and the legal standards applicable to both the prosecution and the defence, issued its direction concerning the improper basis of the conviction and the requisite level of proof for an alibi claim.
Counsel for the respondent, representing the General of the Punjab, appeared with a junior counsel on 17 October 1950, when the judgment was delivered by Justice Fazl Ali. The matter before the Court was an appeal by special leave from the judgment of the High Court of Punjab, which had upheld the conviction of Mohinder Singh under sections 302 and 307 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and had confirmed the death sentence imposed by the Sessions Judge of Ferozepore. The prosecution case, which was largely accepted by both the trial Judge and the High Court, was summarized as follows. In January 1949, Bachittar Singh, brother of Dalip Singh—who was later alleged to have been murdered—filed a complaint before the Naib-Tehsildar at Zira, alleging that a tree belonging to him had been felled by seven persons, including the appellant Mohinder Singh. On 28 February 1949, the date set for hearing the complaint before the Naib-Tehsildar, two brothers of Bachittar Singh—Jita Singh and Dalip Singh—were attacked near a Gurdwara at about midday while returning from their fields. Jita Singh was carrying a load of fodder on his head and Dalip Singh was holding sickles. Mohinder Singh first struck Jita Singh near a tailor’s shop, firing from behind and hitting his neck, causing him to collapse with his bundle of fodder. Dalip Singh, who was following his brother, fled backward and was pursued by a seventeen-year-old youth, Gurnam Singh, around the outer boundary of a nearby tank. Mohinder Singh crossed to the opposite side of the tank, confronted Dalip Singh and shot him in the chest, after which Dalip Singh fell. At the same time, Gurnam Singh reached the scene and discharged his rifle from a distance of four to five feet, aiming near Dalip Singh’s ear while he lay on his side. The injuries proved fatal and Dalip Singh died at the spot. Later that day, at three p.m., Jita Singh walked three miles to the police station at Dharamkot, situated near the village of Augar where the incident occurred, and lodged a first information report charging Mohinder Singh with causing him injury and charging both Mohinder Singh and Gurnam Singh with the murder of Dalip Singh. Following investigation, the police forwarded a charge-sheet against the two accused. The case then proceeded before the Sessions Judge of Ferozepore, who tried the accused under sections 302 and 307 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The appellant, Mohinder Singh, was sentenced to death under section 302, while Gurnam Singh, owing to his youth, received a sentence of transportation for life under the same section, and both were also sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment under section 307 read with section 34.
Both accused were also sentenced to years of rigorous imprisonment each under section 307 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The medical examiner who performed the post-mortem on Dalip Singh reported that the deceased sustained six distinct gunshot injuries, which he described in detail. The first wound was an irregularly round entry wound on the left temporal region, one inch in diameter, situated twenty-two inches behind the outer canthus of the left eye, with its upper margin level with the top of the left ear and extending to broken ear cartilages, exposing brain tissue in the centre of a four-by-four inch blackened area. The second wound measured three-quarters of an inch by one-half inch on the back of the right mastoid region, located one inch behind the root of the right ear, with a vertically oblique trajectory; dissection showed that the left temporal bone at the site of the first injury was perforated and its petrous portion shattered, producing a linear fracture that extended upward and backward into the left parietal and occipital bones, passing through the left temporal lobe, the brainstem, and emerging as the second wound in the right mastoid region. The third injury was a gunshot wound three-quarters of an inch by five-eighths of an inch on the left side of the chest, positioned one and a half inches above and behind the left nipple and half an inch behind the anterior axillary fold, with bruising evident one inch below the wound. The fourth wound measured one-half inch by three-quarters of an inch on the right side of the chest in the mid-axillary line, its top located one and three-quarters inches from the apex of the right axilla and four and three-quarters inches above and behind the right nipple. The fifth wound, one-half inch by one-quarter inch, was on the inner aspect of the right arm, its upper end one and one-quarter inches from the top of the anterior axillary fold. The sixth wound, three-quarters of an inch by one-half inch, was on the front of the right arm, its upper end two and a half inches from the top of the anterior axillary fold, lying one inch apart from injury number five and connected to it beneath the skin. The doctor testified that two projectiles had struck the victim, with injuries one and two representing the entrance and exit wounds of the first projectile, while injuries three through six corresponded to the entrance, exit, re-entrance, and final exit of the second projectile respectively. Additionally, Jita Singh was found to have sustained four slight injuries on the back of his neck, which the medical evidence indicated were caused by pellets.
The medical report also noted two abrasions located below the right elbow and below the right knee, and these injuries were said to have been caused by blunt weapons. It may be recorded that when the investigating police officer arrived at the scene of the occurrence, he discovered an empty cartridge case at the spot where Jita Singh was alleged to have been fired at, and he also found two empty cartridge cases together with a blood-stained cap of a cartridge case near the place where the dead body of Dalip Singh lay. Subsequently, when Mohinder Singh was examined by the police, he was asked whether he possessed a firearm; he produced a licensed twelve-bore gun identified as exhibit P-16. The gun and the empty cartridge cases were then forwarded to Dr. Goyle, Director of the C.I.D. Laboratory in Phillaur, for forensic examination. Dr. Goyle’s opinion may be summarized as follows: the gun showed signs that it had been discharged, but the examiner could not determine the time of its last discharge; the cartridge cases marked P-10 and P-15 could have been fired through gun P-16, yet the examiner could not state definitively whether they had actually been fired from that specific weapon or from a similar gun; no test firing of cartridge from gun P-16 was conducted, and no comparison of the markings on the empty cartridges P-10 and P-15 was made. A notable feature of the case is that the incident is said to have occurred in the vicinity of a Gurdwara and several houses, yet, despite this circumstance, the prosecution did not cite or examine any resident of the locality as a witness. The entire case therefore rests on the testimony of three witnesses: Jita Singh, Harnam Singh, and Buta Singh. Jita Singh, who had been shot from behind, claims that he saw the two accused firing at his brother. Harnam Singh, who lives at a considerable distance from the site of the incident, stated that he was returning from another village where he had obtained medicine for his maternal cousin when he witnessed the occurrence. Buta Singh, a tonga driver originating from a distant village and loosely related to Harnam Singh, explained his presence near the scene by stating that he had visited Harnam Singh on the evening before. Harnam Singh admitted that he had a dispute with Mohinder Singh about a wall approximately one month before the incident, but he also asserted that the dispute had been amicably settled by the panchayat. No evidence has been produced before the Court to show what the panchayat’s award was or whether any lingering ill-feeling remained. Nonetheless, based on the arguments of counsel and the apparently trivial motive ascribed to the alleged murder of Dalip Singh, it appears that among the persons involved, petty quarrels may give rise to enmity that does not readily dissipate.
After the prosecution finished presenting its evidence in the Sessions Court, the appellant was examined under section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code. During this examination he denied that he had fired at Jita Singh and Dalip Singh with the firearm identified as P-16, and he also denied that Gurnam Singh had fired at Dalip Singh with a rifle. He asserted that he was not in the village of Augur at the time of the alleged incident; instead, he claimed to have travelled to Zira in order to attend a proceeding before the Naib Tehsildar. In order to establish this alibi, the appellant called three witnesses before the Sessions Judge. The first witness was the Naib Tehsildar before whom the complainant Bachittar Singh had lodged the original complaint. The Naib Tehsildar testified that when the case was listed on 28 February 1949, six or seven persons appeared before him. He further produced an application for a taccavi loan that he said had been filed by the appellant on the same day and bore the appellant’s thumb impression. He affirmed that he passed orders on that application on 28 February, but he stated that he did not know Mohinder Singh and therefore could not identify who had presented the application to him on that date. The second witness for the defence was the appellant’s brother-in-law, Jogindar Singh, who was the drafter of the same application (exhibit D-C). Jogindar Singh testified that Mohinder Singh himself had been present in the Naib Tehsildar’s court on 28 February 1949, that he had signed the application, and that he was among those who appeared when Bachittar Singh’s case was called. The third defence witness was an expert in handwriting and fingerprint analysis. This expert proved that the application (exhibit D-C) presented to the Naib Tehsildar on 28 February bore the appellant’s thumb impression, and he also testified that certain handwritings he was asked to compare did not match. His testimony supported the appellant’s claim, made in a petition before the committing magistrate, that the original service report of the process peon – which showed the appellant as one of the persons served for appearance before the Naib Tehsildar on 28 February 1949 – had been suppressed and replaced by a forged report.
Both the Sessions Court and the High Court concluded that the alibi had not been proved on a satisfactory evidentiary basis and that the charges against the appellant remained substantiated. The High Court judges expressed lack of confidence in the evidence of Dr Goyle, describing it as unsatisfactory, and they were also unconvinced that the firearm identified as exhibit P-16 had been used to cause the injuries to Dalip Singh. Their observations, as recorded in the judgment, include the remark: “The gun P-16 …” indicating their doubt about the identification and the role of that weapon in the alleged offence. Consequently, the appellate courts did not accept the defence’s alibi argument and upheld the findings of the lower court.
The Court noted that the weapon identified as exhibit P-16 was pointed out by Jita Singh as the gun used by Mohinder Singh to fire at both him and Dalip Singh. Jita Singh based this identification solely on the presence of a brass plate affixed to the butt end of the gun. After examining the firearm, the Court observed that the brass plate could not reliably assist in confirming the identity of the gun, and therefore the identification was not conclusive.
The Court then turned to the injuries sustained by Dalip Singh, describing them as presenting a further difficulty in the case. The nature of the wounds was puzzling because the bullet, although it blackened the area of entry in the brain and indicated a close-range discharge, failed to shatter the brain tissue. Similarly, the projectile that entered Dalip Singh’s body—if, as alleged, it was fired from a very short distance—passed through the torso without fracturing the chest cavity or causing extensive internal damage. The Court highlighted that the type of bullet or projectile responsible for these unusual characteristics remained unknown.
In support of the defence, counsel for the accused, Mr Sethi, referred to Taylor’s treatise on medical jurisprudence and Hateher’s work on ballistics. He argued that, for a projectile to pass through the body without causing severe disintegration, the shot would have to have been fired from a distance of between six hundred and one-two hundred yards. Such a conclusion, Mr Sethi explained, presupposes that the barrel of the weapon—using the term “gun” in its generic sense—was rifled, thereby imparting a high-velocity rotational spin to the projectile, approximately a quarter of a million revolutions per minute, and propelling it at roughly two thousand miles per hour upon exit. The Court pointed out, however, that there was no evidence to establish whether exhibit P-16 possessed a rifled barrel. Instead, the firearm was described as a single-barrel, domestically manufactured gun, making it probable that its barrel was smooth-bored and not grooved.
Upon careful examination of the High Court’s judgment, the Court perceived that the learned judges were dissatisfied with the oral testimony presented, as it failed to explain the anomalous features of Dalip Singh’s injuries. The Court shared this assessment, concluding that the evidence adduced did not meet the requisite standard of proof concerning a material element of the prosecution’s case. In prosecutions where death results from injuries inflicted by a lethal weapon, established jurisprudence obliges the prosecution to demonstrate, through expert testimony, that the injuries could plausibly have been caused by the alleged weapon in the manner described. It is a fundamental principle that when the prosecution puts forward a definitive case, it must substantiate every aspect of that case. In the present matter, the Court remained doubtful as to whether the injuries attributed to the appellant could be linked to the gun in question.
In examining whether the injuries attributed to the appellant were produced by a gun or by a rifle, the Court observed that the circumstances made it appear more probable that a rifle, rather than a gun, was responsible for the wounds. Nevertheless, the prosecution’s case asserted that the appellant possessed a gun, specifically identifying the weapon as the gun P-16, and it was unequivocally established during his examination that he was indeed carrying that firearm. The Court noted that only a competent expert could determine with certainty whether the injuries were inflicted by a gun or a rifle, and that such expert testimony alone could resolve the dispute regarding the feasibility of the injuries being caused by a firearm discharged at the close range suggested by the evidence.
The prosecution further contended that exactly two shots had been fired at the victim, Dalip Singh, and that these two shots had been discharged by two different persons rather than a single individual. Additionally, the prosecution required proof that both shots had been fired in the manner and from the distance described by the eyewitnesses. The Court found a substantial gap in the prosecution’s evidence on this crucial point, observing that the lower courts had erred by overlooking this deficiency and by basing their decision solely on the oral testimony of three witnesses. Two of those witnesses were merely chance observers and were not wholly independent, while the testimony of the third witness was vulnerable to criticism because of his apparent partisanship and the implausibility of his claim to have seen the shooting of his brother after having himself been shot in the back of the neck. The High Court judges, after reviewing the entire evidentiary record, had remarked that the only evidence remaining was that of the three prosecution witnesses, the medical description of the wounds, and an unsatisfactory statement by Dr. Goyle, whose evidence they had rejected. They further noted that the nature of the wounds created a serious difficulty for the case. By relying entirely on the uncorroborated oral testimony, the conviction of the appellant was founded on evidence that had not been examined or confirmed by expert analysis. The Court concluded that the prosecution’s case could not be said to be fully proved; at best, it was only partially established. Accordingly, the Court recalled that, as indicated in Pritam Singh v. The State, a criminal appeal would be entertained only in exceptional circumstances where a blatant disregard of legal procedure, a violation of natural-justice principles, or a substantial and grave injustice had occurred. The Court found that the present case fell within that exception, given that the conviction rested on evidence lacking a material component of the prosecution’s case.
In this matter the Court found that the appellant’s conviction fell within the exception articulated in the earlier precedent, because the conviction was sustained despite a material portion of the prosecution’s case lacking any evidence. That omission alone justified disposing of the appeal, yet the Court expressed clear dissatisfaction with the manner in which the trial courts dealt with the appellant’s alibi plea. Ordinarily a higher court would not re-examine factual findings of the lower courts, but here the Court observed that the decision on the alibi had been reached without observing the principle that the burden of proof for an alibi must be identical to, and no less demanding than, the standard applied to the prosecution’s evidence, namely a reasonable standard of proof.
The parties agreed that the appellant had been summoned to appear before the Naib Tehsildar on 28 February 1949, the date fixed for considering Bachittar Singh’s complaint. In ordinary circumstances the appellant’s appearance on that date would have been unremarkable; however, the record contained positive evidence that an application for a taccavi loan, dated 28 February 1949 and bearing the appellant’s thumb impression, was presented before the Naib Tehsildar and was acted upon on the same day. Additionally, a witness testified that the appellant was present in the Naib Tehsildar’s court on that date. Although the witness was closely related to the appellant, his testimony was bolstered by the probability of his presence and by a written document supporting his claim. The prosecution argued that the summons for appearance on 28 February had not been served upon Mohinder Singh, but the material on the record relating to that point displayed certain unusual features. The prosecution had listed the Naib Tehsildar and the Ahlmad (bench clerk) as witnesses, then later withdrew them, alleging that the Naib Tehsildar had been “won over” by the appellant. That allegation could have been tested during the cross-examination of the Naib Tehsildar, who was examined as a defence witness, yet no evidence emerged from him to substantiate the claim. From the Naib Tehsildar’s own testimony it emerged that on 5 July 1949 the Public Prosecutor showed him exhibit P.S., an order directing the appearance of seven persons, including the appellant, before the Naib Tehsildar on 28 February 1949, and that the Naib Tehsildar affirmed that six or seven individuals had indeed appeared before him on that date. Following this exchange, on 6 July 1949 the Public Prosecutor informed the court that he would “give up the Naib Tehsildar”.
The Court observed that the testimony of the process peon appeared suspicious because the peon seemed to have forgotten all material details. At trial, the appellant claimed that the original report prepared by the process peon had been suppressed and that a forged report had been substituted in its place. The appellant filed an application to this effect before the committing Magistrate and also produced a handwriting expert to support the allegation of forgery. The lower courts, however, had not examined the evidence offered by the handwriting expert. The Court then turned to the evidence of the Investigating Officer as recorded by the Sessions Judge. The recorded statement read as follows: “P.B. and P.C. were obtained by me from the headquarters. Along with P.B. and P.C. the Parvana P.S. was also received by me. After going through the zimnis, the witness states that the aforesaid documents P.B., P.C. and P.S. were summoned by the committing Magistrate and were not sent for by the witness. On 16th March, 1949, a Foot Constable was certainly sent to Zira to bring the said file. But since the file had been sent to the headquarters, therefore, the said constable returned quite blank. I never inspected this file at the headquarters.” The Court noted that the most important document in the proceedings was P.S., which should have borne an endorsement indicating service of summons on the persons complained about by Bachittar Singh. The Court found it contradictory that the Investigating Officer first claimed to have received the process-peon’s report attached to P.S. from headquarters, and later said that the papers had been sent for but never arrived. The Court regarded this inconsistency as surprising, especially given the extensive controversy surrounding the document.
The Court further commented that the learned Sessions Judge, when considering the appellant’s alleged application for a taccavi loan filed on 28th February, 1949, had asserted that after presenting the application before the Naib Tehsildar on that date, Mohinder Singh could have reached his village by noon. The Court pointed out that the Sessions Judge ignored the Naib Tehsildar’s testimony that such applications were normally dealt with between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. on working days, as well as the affirmative testimony of Joginder Singh. In the Court’s view, these omissions meant that the trial had not been conducted in a fair and proper manner. Consequently, the Court was compelled to allow the appeal, to set aside the appellant’s convictions under sections 302 and 307 read with section S-4 of the Indian Penal Code, and to order his immediate release. While under ordinary circumstances the Court might have remanded the matter for a fresh trial, it held that doing so in the present situation would be unfair and contrary to established practice, given the appellant’s prolonged state of suspense over a death sentence.
The Court observed that the appellant had remained in a prolonged condition of uncertainty regarding the enforcement of his death sentence, a state of suspense that had persisted for a period exceeding twelve months. In view of this prolonged suspense, the Court decided that the appellant’s appeal must be permitted and therefore allowed the appeal. The appellant was represented in these proceedings by an appointed agent whose name was recorded as R.S. Narula. The respondent, being the State, was represented by an appointed agent identified in the record as P.A. Mehta. The decision to allow the appeal was based on the fact that the appellant had been living under the constant threat of execution for an extended duration, which the Court considered sufficient grounds for granting relief. Consequently, the appellate relief was granted, and the appellant’s conviction and sentence were set aside, effecting his release. The representation of both parties by their respective agents was duly noted in the order.