Sanwat Singh and Others vs State Of Rajasthan
Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.
Court: Supreme Court of India
Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 119 of 1958
Decision Date: 9 December 1960
Coram: Syed Jaffer Imam, Raghubar Dayal, Subba Rao
In the matter titled Sanwat Singh & Others versus State of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court rendered its judgment on 9 December 1960. The bench comprised Justice Subbarao K., Justice Imam, Justice Syed Jaffer, and Justice Raghubar Dayal. The decision was reported in 1961 AIR 715 and 1961 SCR (3) 120, and it has been cited in numerous subsequent reports, including RF 1963 SC 200, E 1965 SC 26, R 1965 SC 257, R 1966 SC 1775, RF 1967 SC 1412, R 1971 SC 460, RF 1971 SC 1977, F 1972 SC 116, RF 1972 SC 622, R 1972 SC 2020, F 1972 SC 2679, R 1973 SC 55, RF 1973 SC 399, RF 1973 SC 1204, RF 1973 SC 2241, F 1973 SC 2443, RF 1973 SC 2622, R 1974 SC 286, F 1974 SC 606, R 1974 SC 902, R 1979 SC 387, R 1979 SC 391, R 1986 SC 606, and R 1988 SC 2154. The case concerned the legal principles governing an appeal against an acquittal, specifically the meaning and scope of the phrase “substantial and compelling reason” under the power conferred by Article 136 of the Constitution of India.
The factual backdrop involved two rival groups in a village, one composed of Rajputs and the other of cultivators. On a festival day both groups proceeded to a temple for worship. The cultivators arrived first and occupied a sitting place that was customarily used by the Rajputs. When the Rajputs later reached the temple, they objected to the cultivators’ occupation, shifted a short distance away, held a brief conference, and then returned to the temple where they attacked the cultivators with guns, swords and lathis, causing several injuries and two deaths. A total of forty‑three persons were alleged to have participated in the riot and were tried before a Sessions Judge for offences under Section 302 read with Sections 149 and 148 of the Indian Penal Code. The Sessions Judge concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish a common object among the accused to kill the cultivators and had not proved beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of any particular accused; consequently, the Judge acquitted all the accused. On appeal, the High Court examined the complete evidence and found some of the accused guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 read with Sections 149 and 148, sentencing them to various terms of imprisonment, while dismissing the appeal against others where no case was established beyond reasonable doubt. The matter then reached the Supreme Court on a special leave petition challenging the High Court’s conviction and sentence. The Court held that the expression “substantial and compelling reasons” used in its earlier decisions to set aside an order of acquittal signifies that an appellate court must identify clear and persuasive grounds before overturning an acquittal, thereby affirming its authority to review the evidence and reach its own conclusions.
In this case the Court explained that the phrase “substantial and compelling reasons” was meant to indicate that an appellate court must not only keep in mind the principles laid down by the Privy Council in Sheo Swarup’s case but must also set out clear reasons for concluding that the order of acquittal was erroneous. From the discussion of the case law on appeals against acquittal, three main consequences were drawn. First, an appellate court possessed full power to review the evidence on which the acquittal was based. Second, the principles articulated in Sheo Swarup’s case provided a correct guide for the appellate court’s approach in disposing of such appeals. Third, the different wording employed in this Court’s judgments—such as “substantial and compelling reasons”, “good and sufficiently cogent reasons”, and “strong reasons”—was not intended to limit the undeniable power of an appellate court to examine the entire evidence and reach its own conclusion. In exercising that power the appellate court had to consider every matter on record that could affect the factual questions and the reasons given by the lower court in support of its acquittal, and it had to express in its judgment the reasons that led it to hold that the acquittal was not justified. The Court then listed the authorities that were considered and followed, namely Sheo Swarup v. King Emperor (1934) L.R. 61 I.A. 398; Nur Mohammad v. Emperor, A.I.R. 1945 P.C. 151; Surajpal Singh v. The State, [1952] S.C.R. 193; Ajmer Singh v. The State of Punjab, [1953] S.C.R. 418; Puran v. State of Punjab, A.I.R. 1953 S.C. 459; C.M. Narayan v. State of Travancore‑Cochin, A.I.R. 1953 S.C. 478; Tulsiram Kanu v. The State, A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 1; Madan Mohan Singh’s case, A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 637; Zwinglee Ariel v. State of U.P., A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 15; Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh v. State of Vindhya Pradesh, A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 322; S.A.A. Biyabani v. State of Madras, A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 645; Aher Raja Khima v. State of Saurashtra, [1955] 2 S.C.R. 1285; Bhagwan Das v. State of Rajasthan, A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 589; and Balbir Singh v. State of Punjab, A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 216. The High Court was held to have approached the present matter from a correct perspective, to have given definite findings after considering the entire evidence, and to have done so without departing from any of the principles laid down by the Privy Council in Sheo Swarup’s case, also providing reasons for holding that the acquittal was not justified. The Court also referred to Abdul Gani v. State of M.P., A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 31. Finally, the Court noted that although the powers of this Court under Article 136 of the Constitution were very wide, interference was not permitted unless there was a disregard of legal process, a violation of natural‑justice principles, or some other substantial and grave injustice on questions of fact.
The Court reiterated that its usual practice is to refrain from interfering with findings of lower courts, except in rare situations where a finding is so unreasonable that it shocks the conscience of the Court. The present matter was listed as Criminal Appeal No 119 of 1958 and was brought before this Court by special leave against the judgment and order dated 29 July 1957 passed by the Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, in Criminal Appeal No 42 of 1954. The appellants were represented by counsel B L Kohli and C L Sareen, while the respondent was represented by counsel S K Kapur and D Gupta. The Judgment was delivered on 9 December 1960 by Justice Subba Rao. This appeal challenged the conviction and sentence imposed by the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan at Jodhpur on the nine appellants under Section 304 read with Section 149 and Section 148 of the Indian Penal Code.
The nine appellants, together with thirty‑four other individuals, had been charged before the Sessions Judge at Merta. According to the prosecution, two rival groups existed in the village of Harnawa: one comprised of Rajputs and the other of the village cultivators. It was acknowledged that disputes over certain fields existed between these two factions. On 31 October 1951, at approximately 3:30 p.m., the day after Diwali, which is locally known as Ram Ram Day, both groups proceeded to a temple called Baiji‑kathan. The cultivators entered the temple first and occupied the seating area that the Rajputs customarily used. When the Rajputs subsequently arrived, they discovered their usual seats taken by the cultivators and regarded this as an insult. Although the temple priest invited the Rajputs to sit elsewhere, they declined the invitation and moved to a nearby banyan tree for a brief conference. After this meeting they returned to the temple armed with guns, swords and lathis. The Rajputs then opened fire, discharging several shots at the cultivators, and also assaulted them with swords and lathis. As a result, sixteen cultivators sustained injuries; six of them suffered gunshot wounds, and two of those—identified as Deena and Deva—later died from those injuries. Of the remaining fourteen injured persons, three sustained grievous injuries while the others suffered simple injuries. A total of forty‑three individuals alleged to have participated in the rioting were indicted before the Sessions Judge, Merta, for offenses under Section 302 read with Section 149 and Section 148 of the Indian Penal Code. Five of the accused admitted being present at the scene but contended that after completing their customary temple offerings they were attacked by the cultivators as they were leaving. The remaining accused asserted an alibi. The Sessions Judge concluded that the prosecution had failed to establish a common object among the accused to kill the cultivators and had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that any specific accused was guilty of any particular offense, and therefore held that no conviction could be sustained.
On the basis of those findings the trial judge ordered the acquittal of every accused person. The matter was then taken on appeal to the High Court, where the judges concluded that the accused formed an unlawful assembly, that the assembly was driven by a common purpose to beat the cultivators, and that, of the forty‑three persons originally charged, it was clearly shown that nine of them – the appellants – actually participated in the unlawful assembly’s activities. Relying on that determination, the High Court held that the nine appellants were guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder punishable under section 304 read with section 149 of the Indian Penal Code. In addition, the Court found that appellants 1, 2, 3 and 4 were also liable under section 148 because they were armed with deadly weapons, while the remaining appellants were held liable under section 147.
For the offence under section 304 read with section 149, the Court imposed a sentence of ten years’ rigorous imprisonment on each of the nine appellants. It further sentenced appellants 1 to 4 to an additional year of rigorous imprisonment for the violation of section 148, and ordered a term of six months’ rigorous imprisonment for the other appellants under section 147. After a full review of the evidence, the High Court agreed with the trial judge that there was no proof beyond reasonable doubt against any of the other accused persons, and therefore the appeal was allowed only with respect to the nine appellants and dismissed for the remaining accused.
The counsel representing the appellants argued that the trial judge had reached a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence and that the High Court had not identified any substantial and compelling reasons to depart from that conclusion. In recent years, the expression “compelling reasons” has often been invoked in appeals against acquittal, yet the term remains vague and its interpretation has fluctuated between two extreme positions. One position holds that an appellate court should not overturn a trial court’s acquittal unless the finding is so unreasonable that no reasonable person could have arrived at it. The opposite position allows the appellate court to interfere solely on the basis of its own conscience as a gauge of whether compelling reasons exist.
The Court therefore found it necessary to clarify the scope of an appellate court’s power in appeals against acquittal. It referred to the principles set out by the Privy Council in Sheo Swarup v. King‑Emperor, where Lord Russell emphasised that a High Court must give proper weight to several matters: the trial judge’s assessment of witness credibility, the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused that remains even after an acquittal, the accused’s right to benefit of any doubt, and the general reluctance of an appellate court to disturb a factual finding made by a trial judge who has personally observed the witnesses. These principles guide the careful re‑evaluation of evidence in such appeals.
Adverting to the facts of the case, the Privy Council observed that the High Court had no reason to be thought to have omitted any proper consideration when it formed its factual conclusions. The Privy Council explained that the two earlier passages set out the principles that an appellate court must follow when disposing of an appeal against an acquittal and also highlighted the careful approach required in re‑evaluating the evidence. The Council further clarified its earlier observations in Nur Mohammad v. Emperor, reporting at page 152 that “Their Lordships do not think it necessary to read it all again, but would like to observe that there really is only one principle, in the strict use of the word, laid down there; that is that the High Court has full power to review at large all the evidence upon which the order of acquittal was founded, and to reach the conclusion that upon that evidence the order of acquittal should be reversed.” These two authorities establish that the power of an appellate court in an appeal against an acquittal is the same as the power it possesses in an appeal against a conviction; the distinction lies mainly in the manner and perspective of the review rather than in the substantive scope of the power. All Indian courts followed this definition of appellate power until 1951, when it is claimed that the Supreme Court, in Surajpal Singh v. State, articulated a different principle. A close reading of that judgment, however, does not support the often‑cited construction. The passage quoted on page 201 states that it is well‑established that, under section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the High Court may fully review the evidence on which an acquittal rests, yet the presumption of innocence is reinforced by the trial‑court acquittal and the trial‑court findings, which benefited from seeing the witnesses and hearing their evidence, may be overturned only for “very substantial and compelling reasons.” Applying those words to the facts of the case, the Court held that it was inclined to believe the Sessions Judge had taken a reasonable view of the evidence and that there were no “good reasons” for overturning that view. The present observation is that these remarks merely restate the law laid down by the Privy Council and apply it to the facts before the Court. Although one paragraph uses the phrase “substantial and compelling reasons” and the next employs “good reasons,” the judges did not intend to signal any disagreement with the earlier authority (1) [1952] S.C.R. 193.
In this case, the Court observed that the remarks of Lord Russell in the Sheo Swarup decision were intended to guide a High Court when exercising its authority under section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and noted that if this had been the purpose, the Court would have expressly cited Sheo Swarup, which it did not. The same terminology was later repeated by this Court in the judgment of Ajmer Singh v. State of Punjab. In that matter, the appellate court had set aside an acquittal because the accused could not satisfactorily explain circumstances that appeared against him. The Court reiterated that the presumption of innocence is reinforced by an acquittal order, and therefore an appellate court may interfere only for substantial and compelling reasons. The Court applied the earlier observations to the present case as well. Mahajan, J., delivering the judgment in Puran v. State of Punjab, again employed the phrase “very substantial and compelling reasons,” but immediately referred to the Sheo Swarup decision and enumerated the circumstances that an appellate court must consider before disturbing an acquittal. This juxtaposition shows that the Judge used the wording merely to echo the legal principle articulated by the Privy Council. Mukherjea, J., in C. M. Narayan v. State of Travancore‑Cochin, likewise cited the Privy Council decision, affirmed the wide power of an appellate court, and described the proper approach in appeals against acquittals without imposing additional limitations. However, the Court observed that the High Court had failed to keep the well‑settled principles before it and had reversed the trial court’s decision without giving due weight to the material matters relied upon by that court. In Tulsiram Kanu v. State, the Sessions Court expressed that reasonable doubt existed regarding the accused’s guilt, and Chief Justice Kania held that good and sufficiently cogent reasons are required to overcome such doubt before an appellate court can reach a different conclusion. This observation was made in relation to a High Court judgment that had not considered the detailed reasons given by the Sessions Judge. Finally, in Madan Mohan Singh’s case, on appeal by special leave, this Court held that the High Court had not kept the rules and principles of criminal justice clearly before it, thereby vitiating its judgment.
The Court observed that the judgment was therefore void because it failed to attend to and misunderstood several material facts presented in the evidence, and consequently did not give proper weight and consideration to the findings on which the trial court had based its decision. In Zwinglee Ariel v. State of M. P. (2) the Court again quoted the passage from the Privy Council decision mentioned earlier and applied that reasoning to the facts of the present case. In Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh v. State of Vindhya Pradesh (1) Bhagwati, J., speaking for the Court, after referring to a prior decision of this Court, accepted the principle laid down by the Privy Council and restated the Privy Council’s observations in four distinct propositions. It was noted that the learned Judge did not employ the expression “substantial and compelling reasons.” In S. A. A. Biyabani v. The State of Madras (4) Jagannadhadas, J., after citing earlier authorities, observed at page 647 that, “While no doubt on such an appeal the High Court was entitled to go into the facts and arrive at its own estimate of the evidence, it is also settled law that, where the case turns on oral evidence of witnesses, the estimate of such evidence by the trial court is not to be lightly set aside.” (1) A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 637. (2) A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 15. (3) A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 322. (4) A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 645. Although the Judge did not repeat the usual formula, he effectively accepted the Privy Council’s approach. The same issue was later addressed in Aher Raja Khima v. The State of Saurashtra (1). Bose, J., speaking for the majority, stated at page 1287 that, “It is, in our opinion, well settled that it is not enough for the High Court to take a different view of the evidence; there must also be substantial and compelling reasons for holding that the trial court was wrong: Ajmer Singh v. State of Punjab (2); and if the trial Court takes a reasonable view of the facts of the case, interference under section 417 is not justifiable unless there are really strong reasons for reversing that view.” The Judge’s language equated “substantial and compelling reasons” with “strong reasons.” Kapur, J., in Bhagwan Das v. State of Rajasthan (1) referred to the earlier authorities and reiterated that a High Court should not set aside an acquittal unless “substantial and compelling reasons” exist. In Balbir Singh v. State of Punjab (4) this Court echoed the same principle at page 222, observing that, “It is now well settled that though the High Court has full power to review the evidence upon which an order of acquittal is founded, it is equally well settled that the presumption of innocence of the accused person is further reinforced by his acquittal by the trial Court and the views of the trial Judge as to …”
The Court emphasized that the credibility of witnesses must be given proper weight and that an appellate court should be slow to disturb a factual finding made by a trial judge who had the advantage of observing the witnesses directly. It further held that an appellate court must have substantial and compelling reasons before arriving at a conclusion that differs from that of the trial judge. The observations merely reiterated principles previously laid down by this Court in earlier decisions, including the authorities reported in [1955] 2 S.C.R. 1285, [1953] S.C.P. 418, 423, A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 689 and A.I.R. 1957 S.C. 216. In several other judgments, this Court, without extensive discussion, affirmed the decisions of High Courts that interfered with orders of acquittal, provided they did not breach the principles articulated by the Privy Council. The Court found no difficulty in applying the Privy Council’s principles, as accepted by this Court, to the facts of each case. However, it observed that many appellate courts struggle to understand the scope of the expression “substantial and compelling reasons” employed in the cited decisions. The Court clarified that it neither added nor could add a condition to section 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code; rather, the expression was intended to convey that an appellate court must keep the Privy Council’s principles in mind and must also articulate clear reasons for concluding that an acquittal was erroneous. From this discussion the Court derived three essential propositions. First, an appellate court possesses full authority to review the evidence upon which an acquittal rests. Second, the principles articulated in Sheo Swarup’s case (1934) L.R. 61 I.A. 398 provide an appropriate guide for the appellate court’s approach in disposing of such appeals. Third, the various phrases used by this Court—such as “substantial and compelling reasons,” “good and sufficiently cogent reasons,” and “strong reasons”—are not meant to limit the appellate court’s unquestioned power to re‑examine the entire evidential record and to reach its own conclusion.
Nevertheless, while exercising that power, the appellate court must consider every matter on the record that bears on the factual questions and must also review the reasons given by the trial court in support of its order of acquittal. Moreover, the appellate court is required to express in its judgment the specific reasons that lead it to hold that the acquittal was not justified. With this background, the Court proceeded to examine the judgment of the Sessions Judge and the judgment of the High Court to determine whether the High Court had departed from the principles laid down by the Privy Council. The framework of the Sessions Judge’s judgment can be briefly outlined: the initial issue was whether the prosecution’s case...
In this case, the trial judge recorded that the meeting of the Rajputs under a banyan tree, their alleged conspiracy to assault the Jats, and their return to the temple armed with weapons was established as a factual circumstance. This circumstance was corroborated by several eyewitnesses who testified on the night of the incident, specifically Goga (identified as plaintiff‑witness 1), Chandra (plaintiff‑witness 2) and Doongar Singh (plaintiff‑witness 21). The latter also documented the same fact in the First Information Report that he filed. Altogether, twenty eyewitnesses gave testimony concerning the alleged conspiracy; among those, plaintiff‑witnesses 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24 and 25 sustained injuries during the disturbance.
The Sessions Judge evaluated the evidence of plaintiff‑witnesses 1 and 2 and rejected it, stating that it was unsubstantial and contained only minor, insignificant discrepancies. He then observed that the remaining eyewitnesses, despite presenting slight and inconsequential variations in their statements, uniformly narrated that the group returned from the banyan tree bearing lathis, swords and guns. Nevertheless, the judge did not expressly declare that he accepted this body of testimony; instead, at the conclusion of his judgment he expressed the view that he could not find that the assembly of Rajputs possessed a common intention to kill anyone.
Subsequently, the judge turned to the question of whether any individual Rajput was positively identified by the witnesses. For this purpose, he categorized the accused persons into three distinct groups. The first group comprised those accused who were present among the Rajputs when they initially arrived for darshan of the deity Baiji. The second group consisted of those accused who were among the Rajputs when they returned from the banyan tree, but for whom the evidence regarding participation in the actual rioting was divided. The third group included those accused for whom the majority of eyewitnesses asserted that they had taken part in the rioting and had inflicted injuries on the cultivators.
Regarding the first group, the Sessions Judge, relying on the reasons he had earlier articulated, again rejected the testimony of Goga and Chandra. He noted that twenty‑eight of the accused had not been unanimously named by all the eyewitnesses, and he highlighted the long‑standing enmity between the Rajputs and the cultivators. He therefore formulated a criterion that, to establish the presence of any particular accused, there must be an allegation that the individual performed an overt act within the unlawful assembly. Applying this yardstick, the judge concluded that none of the accused falling within the first group—including appellants 7, 8 and 9—could be found guilty of the offences charged against them.
Turning to the second category, which was not the subject of the present appeal, the judge again employed the test requiring proof of an overt act for each accused and held that no case could be made out against any of them.
With respect to the third group, the judge observed that twelve of the eyewitnesses belonged to the subset that had themselves suffered injuries. He introduced a further test for admitting their evidence, essentially stating that an accused who was identified by only a single witness and for whom no overt act could be proved should be granted the benefit of doubt and consequently acquitted. Applying this standard to the testimonies of the injured eyewitnesses, the judge held that the accused persons in this third group were not guilty of the charges.
Applying the test that an accused identified only by a single witness and not shown to have performed any overt act should be acquitted because of the benefit of doubt, the trial judge concluded that those accused could not be held guilty. After reviewing the evidence in that manner, the trial judge reached the final finding that he could not hold that the gathering of Rajputs possessed a common intention to kill anyone, that the incidents occurred in the heat of the moment, that the Rajputs who participated in the rioting were not accurately named, that innocent individuals had been implicated, and that the cases against those alleged to have committed overt acts were riddled with doubts. On appeal, the High Court judges, as previously noted, allowed the appeal for nine of the appellants and dismissed it for the others. The appellate judges stated that they had no hesitation in holding that the prosecution’s case, on the whole, represented the substantial truth and that the events at the banyan tree were factual. They observed that the reasons offered by the trial judge for rejecting the testimony of the principal witnesses, Goga and Chandra, who recounted what transpired at the banyan tree, could not be sustained, and that the alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in their statements were not of a nature to detract from their credibility. The Supreme Court also examined the testimony of Goga and Chandra and fully agreed with the High Court’s observation that their evidence was natural, consistent, and that the discrepancies identified by the trial judge were either non‑existent or, if present, so trivial as to have no impact on their truthfulness. The appellate judges further noted that the accounts of Goga and Chandra were corroborated by the testimony of Doongar Singh, identified as PW 21, a police constable who lodged the First Information Report at the earliest opportunity. The narrative contained in the First Information Report supported his testimony. The appellate judges indicated that this version was also essentially backed by other eyewitnesses and that there was no reason to believe it was fabricated if it were untrue. Considering this body of evidence, the High Court judges found themselves unable to accept the trial judge’s conclusion that the incident amounted to a stray beating by a few individuals on the Rajput side against some Jats. They determined that the Rajputs constituted an unlawful assembly, collectively driven by a common purpose to assault the cultivators. Having held that the trial judge erred in his assessment of the unlawful assembly, the appellate judges proceeded to assess the liability of each accused. They adopted the principle articulated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Abdul Gani v. State of M., which emphasizes that even in cases of rioting between hostile factions, where exaggerations and false implications may occur, courts must not discard the entire case merely because of discrepancies, and where the prosecution’s case is substantially true, the court must identify any accused whose participation is proven beyond reasonable doubt and punish them accordingly.
In the judgment the Court acknowledged that in a rioting situation involving two hostile groups, exaggerations are inevitable and some innocent individuals may be wrongly implicated. Nevertheless, the Court emphasized that it is not the function of the judiciary to discard an entire case merely because of inconsistencies, as was suggested in the earlier authority A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 31. The Court stated that when the prosecution’s case is essentially correct, the trial court must determine whether any of the accused actually participated in the offence and, if the presence of an accused is proved beyond reasonable doubt, that person must be punished for the crimes he or she committed.
Applying this principle, the Court examined the evidence and concluded that appellant 1, Sanwat Singh, who was present at the scene, was a member of the unlawful assembly and had struck Sheonath with his sword, causing injury to three of Sheonath’s fingers. The Court found that appellant 2, Dhan Singh, had taken a leading role in the beating. Appellant 3, Mangej Singh, was unequivocally identified as a participant in the unlawful assembly. Appellant 4, Kalu Singh, was armed with a sword, attacked the Jats, and his claim that the Jats had attacked him first was rejected as false. Appellant 5, Narain Singh, was also a member of the unlawful assembly and had beaten witness 25. Appellant 6, Gulab Singh, had struck Sheokaran Jat with lathis. Furthermore, appellants 7, Sabal Singh; 8, Baney Singh; and 9, Inder Singh, although they admitted being present at the spot and asserted that they were attacked by the Jats, were nonetheless found to be participants in the beating.
Regarding the remaining accused, the Court, after reviewing all the evidence, concurred with the Sessions Judge that the prosecution had not established any case against them beyond reasonable doubt. For these individuals, there was no proof that they possessed any weapon or took any active part in assaulting any of the Jats. Consequently, the High Court held that the appellants had formed an unlawful assembly with the common purpose of beating the Jats and that they must have foreseen that murder could occur in the pursuit of that objective. On this basis, the High Court convicted and sentenced the appellants as detailed earlier in the judgment. The Court rejected the argument put forward by counsel for the appellants that the High Court had disregarded principles laid down by the Privy Council and later adopted by this Court, finding that the analysis of the findings of both courts demonstrated otherwise. The Court noted that the Sessions Judge, concerning the prosecution’s broader theory that the Rajputs, displeased by the Jats occupying their customary place in the temple, met at the banyan tree, conferred briefly and then proceeded to the temple to attack the Jats, had rejected the principal witnesses’ testimony without satisfactory justification.
The Sessions Judge, after the appellants allegedly returned to the temple to attack the Jats, dismissed the testimony of the prosecution’s principal witnesses—Goga, Chandra and Doongar Singh—on grounds that could not withstand any reasonable scrutiny. He also disregarded the extensive body of evidence that supported the statements of those three witnesses, and he did so without offering any valid or acceptable explanation for this omission. Moreover, the Sessions Judge failed to render a clear finding on this version of the prosecution’s case, although his actions implied that he had, in effect, rejected it. In evaluating the individual cases, he classified the witnesses into three separate groups and applied a purely mechanical test, consequently refusing to give any effect to their evidence.
The High Court correctly observed that there was no justification for dismissing either the voluminous corroborative evidence that backed the general case or the testimony of the three key witnesses, Goga, Chandra and Doongar Singh. The High Court judges accepted the evidence of those witnesses, finding that it conclusively proved the truth of the prosecution’s general case and demonstrated that the appellants had indeed taken an active role in assaulting the Jats with swords and lathis. In reaching that conclusion, the High Court did not depart from any of the principles previously laid down by the Privy Council. On the contrary, the High Court intervened in the Sessions Judge’s decision, concluding that the lower‑court judgment, as it pertained to the appellants, was plainly erroneous and contradicted the overwhelming and reliable evidence presented at trial. The High Court, in the view of this Court, examined the matter from a proper perspective and articulated definitive findings after considering the entire evidentiary record.
The remaining issue is whether the appellants have established a sufficient ground to seek interference with the High Court’s judgment under Article 136 of the Constitution. Article 136 grants this Court a broad discretionary power to entertain appeals in cases not otherwise provided for by the Constitution. Implicit in that reserve power is the understanding that it cannot be exhaustively defined, and precedent indicates that interference is warranted only when there is a clear disregard for procedural forms, a violation of natural‑justice principles, or the occurrence of substantial and grave injustice. Although Article 136 is expressed in the most expansive terms, this Court’s practice is to refrain from interfering with factual findings except in extraordinary circumstances where such findings shock the conscience of the Court. In the present matter, the High Court has not contravened any of the principles articulated in the Sheo Swarup case, and it has provided reasons supporting its determination that the acquittal was not justified. Consequently, no valid case has been made out for this Court to reject the High Court’s findings. Accordingly, the appeal fails and is dismissed.