Santa Singh vs State Of Punjab

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Appeal (crl.) 123 of 1955

Decision Date: 02/02/1956

Coram: V. Bose, B. Jagannadhadas, B.P. Sinha, S.J. Imam, N.C. Aiyar

In the case titled Santa Singh versus State of Punjab, the Supreme Court of India issued its judgment on 2 February 1956. The matter was recorded as Appeal (Criminal) 123 of 1955, filed by the petitioner Santa Singh against the respondent State of Punjab. The appeal was heard by a five‑judge bench consisting of Justice V. Bose, Justice B. Jagannadhadas, Justice B. P. Sinha, Justice S. J. Imam and Justice N. C. Aiyar. The opinion was authored by Justice Chandrasekhara Aiyar, and the judgment has been reported in the All India Reporter at 1956 AIR (SC) 526. The petitioner had been convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge, Amritsar, for the murder of the deceased Labh Singh and was sentenced to death. That conviction and sentence were subsequently affirmed by the Punjab High Court. Seeking redress, the petitioner obtained special leave to appeal before this Court. After hearing counsel for both the petitioner and the State, the Court considered the material on record, including the findings of the trial courts, the post‑mortem report, and the expert testimony, before reaching its decision on the appeal.

The prosecution case was that the incident occurred at about noon on 10 September 1954. Earlier that morning a quarrel arose between the appellant and the deceased over the disappearance of the wife of a certain Buta Singh; the deceased had alleged that the appellant’s grandfather was responsible for the alleged abduction. Following this dispute, the deceased and his brother Uttam Singh proceeded to their fields and returned at roughly noon. Near a Gurdwara they stopped to bathe at a well where Mohinder Singh and Khem Singh were already washing. After completing their baths, the four men set out for their homes, the deceased walking ahead of the group. Shortly thereafter the appellant caught up with them and again exchanged words with the deceased. The appellant, who was carrying a rifle, fired at Labh Singh from behind as the latter attempted to flee. Labh Singh died instantly; the post‑mortem recorded that his small intestines were torn and his left kidney was smashed. The eyewitnesses to the shooting were Uttam Singh (the deceased’s brother), Mohinder Singh and Khem Singh. Their testimonies were accepted by both the Sessions Judge and the High Court. While ordinarily the Supreme Court would not interfere with a conviction absent special circumstances, the Court identified several features that rendered the finding of guilt unsafe. The post‑mortem described a circular entry wound on the back of the deceased, about one‑quarter inch in diameter, with burnt inverted margins. The ballistic expert, Dr Goyle, testified that such burnt edges could be produced only when the muzzle was a few inches, and certainly not beyond nine inches, from the victim. This scientific opinion was consistent with authorities such as Taylor’s Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, Vol. I, which notes that burning of a wound is unlikely at distances greater than a yard with a shotgun or more than half a yard with a revolver. The Court therefore found the forensic evidence raised doubt about the prosecution’s version and concluded that the conviction could not be sustained.

The Court referred to the tenth edition of a medical jurisprudence text, specifically page 441 under the heading “Burning of the Wound”. The passage stated that it was impossible to fix a precise rule for the distance at which a firearm could cause burning marks on a wound, because the result depended on the amount and type of powder, the method of charging, and the nature of the weapon. The text further observed that, although burning marks might occasionally be produced at a distance, it was unusual to obtain such marks beyond a yard or a yard and a half when a shotgun was used, and beyond half a yard when a revolver was employed.

In the matter before the Court, two plans of the incident scene were shown. The first plan, called the site plan, had been prepared by the Sub‑Inspector of Police identified as PW 20. The second plan had been prepared by a draftsman identified as PW 10 on 14 September. All three eye‑witnesses testified that they had pointed out to the Head Constable and to the Sub‑Inspector the exact spots where the accused had stood when he discharged the rifle and where the deceased had stood when he was shot. Regarding the draftsman’s plan, only two of the witnesses, namely Uttam Singh (PW 16) and Khem Singh (PW 18), said that they had shown those two spots to the draftsman. The draftsman testified that the three witnesses had indicated the two locations to him and that the marginal notes he added to the plan accurately reflected those indications. The plan showed the distance between the two locations as twenty‑five feet.

The Court considered whether the evidence of the draftsman could be excluded on the ground of Section 162 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which renders inadmissible the oral statements that witnesses made to police officers. It held that even if the statements made to the Head Constable and the Sub‑Inspector were barred under that provision, no similar bar applied to the draftsman’s testimony. The Court explained that when a draftsman is asked to prepare a sketch of the place where an offence occurred, he first ascertains from the witnesses the precise positions of the assailant and the victim at the relevant time. He then measures the distance between those positions, records the measurement on his sketch, and, if the witnesses corroborate that they showed him the places, the resulting sketch constitutes legal evidence. The Court found it difficult to see any reason why such evidence should be deemed inadmissible. The Court further noted that the authorities cited on behalf of the State by counsel Mr Bindra were distinguishable from the present circumstances.

The Court examined earlier authorities. In Ibra Akanda v Emperor (1944 Cal 339, AIR V 31), the record consisted only of a map drawn by a Sub‑Inspector, which contained a remark about the distance derived from statements the Sub‑Inspector had obtained in his investigative capacity. The Court contrasted this with Kalia v Emperor (1925 Cal 959, AIR V 12), a case that made no specific reference to Section 162 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In Kalia, the judgment quoted a passage describing the fourth exhibit, Exhibit 5, and observed that the map displayed certain items that must have been supplied to the police officer by another person. The passage illustrated this by noting the appearance on the map, opposite the letter “S”, of the words “This is the position of the witness Daulat”. The Court highlighted this language to show that the map contained information derived from a witness, but the present case involved a draftsman who measured the distance himself after being shown the positions by the witnesses, rather than a police officer relying solely on hearsay statements.

In the present case the Court observed that, strictly speaking, the map could not have been admitted in its current form unless two additional layers of testimony were produced. First, there would have to be evidence from Daulat concerning precisely what he had conveyed to the police officer, and second, there would have to be evidence from that officer describing exactly what Daulat had told him, thereby rendering the map admissible as evidence. The Court then referred to the earlier authority of Bhagirathi Chowdhury v. King‑Emperor (1926 Cal 550, AIR V 13). In that decision the map had been prepared by a Sub‑Inspector, and the Court noted that, absent the witnesses who originally supplied the information, the Sub‑Inspector’s remark would constitute hearsay. However, the present matter does not involve the Sub‑Inspector’s site sketch; rather, it concerns a plan drawn up by a draftsman who obtained information from eye‑witnesses about two specific locations. The draftsman’s evidence, read together with the plan he produced, shows that he personally measured the distance between the two places and recorded that measurement on the map. The Court emphasized that it is not unusual for a draftsman to prepare such a plan and that doing so is not an attempt to circumvent the provisions of section 162 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Court further examined the Supreme Court’s decision in Ram Kishan Mithanlal Sharma v. State of Bombay (1955 SC 104, AIR V 42). That judgment dealt specifically with police‑conducted identification parades and held that statements made by witnesses to identify a particular accused during such a parade are inadmissible under section 162. The Supreme Court had adopted the view of the Calcutta and Allahabad High Courts over the contrary view expressed by the Madras High Court and the Nagpur Judicial Commissioner’s Court. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court also observed that if, after arranging the parade, the police withdraw and allow the identification to be made entirely under the direction and supervision of the witnesses, the witnesses’ statements fall outside the scope of section 162. Applying that principle, the Court found no indication in the present case that the draftsman’s map was prepared in the presence of police officers or that the eye‑witnesses showed the two locations to the draftsman while the police were supervising. Moreover, the Sub‑Inspector testified that he was in the village only on the 10th and 11th of September, whereas the draftsman stated that he prepared the sketch on the 14th of September. Consequently, there was no opportunity for a police‑originated statement to be incorporated into the map. The Court concluded that the evidence was not hearsay for two reasons: first, the eye‑witnesses were called and affirmed that they had shown the distinct spots to the draftsman; second, the draftsman personally measured the distances and, while testifying, swore that the distances recorded on the sketch were accurate. The Court warned that any alternative view would create difficulty in establishing the places where the deceased and the accused stood, as well as the distance between those points.

In order to establish the exact locations where the assailant and the victim stood, the distance separating those two points, and the position from which the witnesses observed the incident, the prosecution relied on the sketch prepared by the draftsman. The medical evidence, however, indicated that the shot had been fired from a very short range, approximately nine inches to one and a half yards, whereas the eyewitnesses who had shown the draftsperson the scene asserted that the rifle had been discharged from a distance of about twenty‑five feet. The High Court attempted to resolve this inconsistency by suggesting that it might not be reliable to act on markings made four days after the occurrence. Nevertheless, this reasoning offered little assistance because the draftsperson was not asked to estimate the range; instead, he was shown the precise spots where the appellant and the deceased were standing at the moment of firing, without any measurement of the separation between them.

A further complication arose from the handling of physical evidence. Police reports claimed that an empty cartridge case and a quantity of blood‑stained earth were recovered from the crime scene on 10 September, following the initial information given by Uttam Singh (PW 16). These items were carefully packed in two sealed packets and sent to the police station. The packet containing the earth was forwarded to the Chemical Examiner at Kasauli on 11 October 1954, while the packet with the empty cartridge case was not dispatched to Dr Goyal until 27 October 1954. Even if one accepts the Sub‑Inspector’s explanation that the empty case needed to be retained until the rifle was recovered so that both could be examined together, no justification was provided for why, after the rifle and twenty‑four cartridges were seized from the accused’s house on 26 September 1954, the police continued to hold the sealed parcels until 11 October 1954. This unusually long delay aroused suspicion and supported the accused’s cross‑examination argument that the cartridge later sent for expert analysis might have been one fired by the police at the station rather than the one originally recovered at the scene. Moreover, the memo documenting the recovery of the empty cartridge case was signed only by Uttam Singh and Mohinder Singh (PW 16 and PW 17), with no independent witness corroboration. An additional unexplained fact was that, although the accused was arrested on 14 September and brought to the police station on 21 September, the Sub‑Inspector did not interrogate him until 26 September, leaving a further gap in the investigative timeline.

In this matter, the Court found that, when the medical evidence was taken into consideration, the statements of the eye‑witnesses could not be reliably accepted. The Court further observed that there were considerable and unexplained delays in several crucial stages of the investigation, and that these delays created a serious doubt as to whether the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. On the basis of this assessment, the Court acquitted the appellant of the charge that had been brought against him. Accordingly, the death sentence that had been imposed was set aside, and the appellant was ordered to be released.

The judgment delivered by other members of the bench, which had recently overturned the conviction of the appellant affirmed by the Sessions Judge and confirmed by the High Court, rested upon three principal grounds. First, the Court noted that the testimony of the eye‑witnesses conflicted with the medical evidence, rendering the eye‑witness accounts unreliable. Second, the Court pointed out that there was an unreasonable delay in forwarding sealed parcels for forensic examination: (a) the empty cartridge case that had been recovered from the scene of the occurrence, and (b) the rifle that had been seized from the appellant’s residence. Both items were held back for an extended period before being sent to the ballistic expert, Dr. Goyle, for analysis. Third, the Court highlighted that although the appellant had been arrested on 14 September 1954 and taken to the police station on 21 September 1954, the Sub‑Inspector did not interrogate him until 26 September 1954. The Court expressed that the latter two suspicious features—namely the delays in forensic testing and the postponed interrogation—cast serious doubt on the integrity of the investigation. In a case involving a capital sentence, the Court agreed with the view that when such strong suspicions surround investigative procedures, reliance solely on contested oral testimony is unsafe, and thus it supported the order of acquittal on the basis of grounds two and three. These two points, especially the delay in sending the cartridge case for ballistic testing, had been specifically highlighted during the cross‑examination of prosecution witnesses and had been the focus of attacks before both the trial and appellate courts. The Court expressed surprise that neither the trial court nor the appellate court had addressed these issues in their judgments. Moreover, the defence, during cross‑examination of the Assistant Sub‑Inspector, suggested that the cartridge case sent to the ballistic expert might not have been the one recovered from the crime scene but rather a cartridge that had been fired at the police station from among those found at the appellant’s house. If this suggestion were true, the most important corroboration of the eye‑witness testimony would be lost, creating grave doubt about the reliability of the prosecution’s case. While the Court respectfully noted a dissenting view concerning the first ground—that the alleged conflict between oral evidence and the ballistic expert’s testimony should not automatically invalidate the oral evidence—it upheld the acquittal based on the critical procedural deficiencies identified in grounds two and three.

The Court expressed a serious objection to deciding the appeal on the basis of the claimed conflict between the oral testimonies and the plan prepared by a draftsman. It observed that the alleged conflict could not be established from the evidence that had been presented, and consequently the evidence relied upon for that purpose was deemed inadmissible. The evidence in question consisted of a diagram drawn by a draftsman that illustrated the distance between the spot from which the accused allegedly discharged a rifle and the position occupied by the deceased at the time of the shooting, the plan indicating a distance of approximately twenty‑five feet. The Court found that this draft plan could not be admitted as proof because the manner of its preparation and the circumstances of its adoption were not established in a manner compliant with the rules of evidence. Accordingly, the Court felt bound to address the matter, noting that the issue raised extended far beyond the facts of the present case and that adopting a contrary view would weaken the authority of a prior decision of this Court.

The next point considered by the Court was whether evidence relating to the measurement of distances, as pointed out by witnesses to the draftsman during the police investigation, could be admitted under section 162 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Court identified that this question had been examined in the earlier judgment reported as 1955 SC 104, AIR V 42. While the earlier case had been distinguished on the basis that it dealt with the admissibility of evidence concerning identification parades, the Court clarified that the core issue in that decision was whether a witness’s testimony about a prior identification made during a police‑conducted parade amounted to a previous statement made in the course of investigation and therefore was inadmissible. The Court reiterated the principle articulated in that precedent, namely that any evidence that is effectively a prior statement given in the presence of a police officer and during the investigation is not permissible, irrespective of whether the statement was made by the officer himself or by another individual to whom the officer was addressing the statement. The Court referred specifically to pages 114 and 115 of the report of the earlier case for a detailed exposition of this rule.

Turning to the facts of the present matter, the Court examined the evidence concerning the drafting of the distance plan. The Assistant Sub‑Inspector who conducted the investigation, identified as PW 20, testified that he had prepared a rough site plan (Exhibit P‑J) and had also obtained a more detailed plan (Exhibit P‑A) that had been prepared by the draftsman Des Raj. The draftsman, who was PW 10, stated that he had drawn Exhibit P‑A on 14 September 1954 at the request of the police, using a scale of ten Karams to one inch, and that the plan was based on the pointing out of locations by witnesses named Khem Singh, Mohinder Singh and Uttam Singh. He further asserted that the marginal notes he recorded on the plan were correct. However, the draftsman did not specify the date on which the witnesses pointed out the locations, nor did he confirm whether the police were present at the time of that pointing out. The Court noted that the eyewitnesses themselves had given testimony regarding the pointing out of distances, an issue that would be examined in the subsequent portion of the judgment.

The Court observed that the material presented on this point left no room for doubt. Of the three eyewitnesses examined, namely P.W. 16, P.W. 17 and P.W. 18, the testimony of P.W. 17 did not corroborate the draftsman’s version. In his primary examination, P.W. 16 stated, “I came with the police to the village and joined the investigation of the case.” During cross‑examination he further explained, “I came to the spot with the police about one p.m.; I pointed out to the Head Constable and to the Sub‑Inspector the places where the accused was standing when he fired the rifle shot, and also the place where the brother Labh Singh was standing and was fired at. I also pointed out those places to the draftsman.” P.W. 18 likewise testified, “I pointed out to the police and the draftsman the places where Labh Singh was standing when he was shot and also where Santa Singh was standing when he fired the shot. Mohinder Singh also pointed out these places to the draftsman.” On the basis of this evidence the Court concluded that the only reasonable inference was that the draftsman’s indication of distances was made in the immediate presence of the police officer, and that it was incidental to the police officer’s own on‑site pointing out of the same distances during the investigation on the tenth day. The Court found it difficult to distinguish the present circumstances from the previously cited case and noted that they fell squarely within the principle elaborately set out on pages 114 and 115 of the Court’s 1955 judgment (SC 104 S AIR V. 42 (D)). Accordingly, the Court held that the draftsman’s evidence, together with the markings he made on the map, could be treated only as evidence of prior statements concerning distance made by the eyewitnesses during the police investigation, and therefore such evidence was inadmissible in the present proceedings, whether as substantive proof or as corroborative reinforcement of the eyewitness testimony. The Court further observed that, because this evidence essentially comprised prior statements of prosecution witnesses obtained during the investigation, it could be employed by the accused solely for the purpose of contradicting and discrediting the oral testimony of those eyewitnesses. However, the appellant sought to introduce the draftsman’s evidence not to challenge the eyewitnesses but to supplement their testimony and to create a conflict with the medical evidence, thereby attempting to discredit the medical findings. The Court deemed this use impermissible. If the intention had been to contradict the eyewitnesses, the proper method would have been to elicit, during cross‑examination, the witnesses’ own estimates of the approximate distances; should those estimates be considerably less than about twenty‑five feet, the earlier statements made by the

In this case, the Court observed that the prior statements made by witnesses to the police and to the draftsman during the investigation should have been specifically reiterated to those witnesses, and they should have been asked to confront the inconsistency. The Court noted that although such a procedure might be elaborate, the significance of the issue—namely, the possibility of undermining the direct testimony of the prosecution witnesses—does not allow any shortcut. The Court stressed that both the accused and the prosecution bear the duty to place legally admissible evidence on record in a manner that complies with the law. The Court further explained that this principle appears to underlie the High Court’s refusal to admit the distance evidence, as the High Court observed that no question had been put to Uttam Singh (PW‑16) and Khem Singh (PW‑18) to determine the distance between Labh Singh and Santa Singh at the moment the shot was fired. While hearing the present appeal on special leave, the Court found no justification for disregarding the High Court’s categorical finding that it had not been established that Santa Singh fired at Labh Singh from a distance of twenty‑five feet. Consequently, the Court concluded that the use of the draftsman’s testimony and the map he prepared did not produce a permissible contradiction of the eye‑witness evidence that would invalidate it.