# HALLU v. M.P. STATE (Chandrachud, ].)

- **Citation:** [1974] 3 S.C.R. 652
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1974-03-19
- **Bench:** M. H. Beg Ano Y. V. Chanorachuo
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/hallu-v-m-p-state-chandrachud-6052
- **Pages:** 5

## Headnote

Crimin.:U trial-Cast of rioting and murder-Correct' approach to eridenctFIR if should be givtn by one having persona/ know/edge of the incitknt.
The appeUants, along with others, were charged with offences arising out of tbemurdCr of two persons. The trial court assessed the evidence on the followina
principles, namely : (a) in rioti.n:g cases discrepancies arc bound to occur in the
evidence but the duty of the court is to have regard to the broad probabilities of the
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case; (b) in a factious village independent witnesses arc unwilling to come forward
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and therefore the testimony of eye witnesses who may be interested in the doceased
cannot be discarded merely for that reason, provided of course the presence of the
witnesses is proved; and (c) the First Information Report docs not constitute su~
tantive evidence in the case and the mere circumstance that there arc certain
omissions in it will not justify the case being disbelieved; and gave weighty fea:SODS
fQ[ holding that the guilt of the acc'used was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
In appeal, the High Court, while acquitting others, convicted the appellants under
s. 302 read with s. 149 l.P.C.
Allowing the appeal to this Court.-
D
HELD : The Kigh Court ought not to have interfered with the order of acquittal
ven if there were two possible views or the evidence. {6S4D-E}
(a) The High Court wrongly refused to attach any importance to the circumstance
that the names of the appellants were not mentioned in the very first report to the
police and that a totally different group_ of persons were mentioned as the assailants.
The High Court held that that report could not be treated as the First Infonnation
Report under s. 154 Cr. P.C., bc: .. ause, the person who gave the Report had no personal knowledge of the incident. Buts. 154 docs not require lhat the Report must
be given by a person who has personal knowledge of the incident reported. It only
speaks of an inrormation relating to the commission of a cognizable offence given
to ·an officer in-charge of a ~olice station.
(654H-5SSC]
(b) Another rer,ort, given by the Kotwal of the village, was treated by the Hi&h
Court .as the First nformation Report. But this report wholly destroys the prosecu~
tion case, because, while the case of the prosecution was that the incident happened
on: the afternoon of the previous day, the Kotwal stated in his report that the incident
had taken place during the early hours of the day on which he gave the reponp
(6SSE-GJ
(c) In that Report also the names or the assailants were not mentioned. The
inference arising from the fact that the name of an accused is not mentioned in the
Fin:t Information Report must vary from case to case; but the High Court wholly
ignored the fact that even the Kotwal of the village had not come to know ~he names
or the assailants though 20 hours had elapsed after-the incident had taken place
nccording to the prosecution. [655G-HJ
(d) The Hi~h Court reruSed to attach any importance to the discrepancies between
the medical evidence and the evidence of the eye witnesses that the deceased were
t1ttacked with spears and axes, on the ground that the witnesses had not stated
that 'the miscreants dealt axe blows from the sharp-side or used the spears as a
piercing weapon'. The High Court explained the absence of incised er punctured
wounds by observing, without any basis, that the accused might have used the
blunt side. {656C-E]
(e) It is generally not easy to find witnesses on whose testimony implicit reliance
can be placed. It is al,vays advisable to test the evidence of witnesses on the anvil
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HALLU v. M.P. STATE (Chandrachud, ].)
653
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of objective circumstances of the case. But the High Court, in the present case,
accepted the evidence of the two a11eged eye-witnesses as implicitly re1iablr v.·ith()ut
so testing their evidence. They claimed to have seen the incident in the afterx:oon,
but if the incident

## Text

652
HALLU AND OTHERS
I'.
STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH
March 19, 1974
(M. H. BEG ANO Y. V. CHANORACHUO, JJ.)
Crimin.:U trial-Cast of rioting and murder-Correct' approach to eridenctFIR if should be givtn by one having persona/ know/edge of the incitknt.
The appeUants, along with others, were charged with offences arising out of tbemurdCr of two persons. The trial court assessed the evidence on the followina
principles, namely : (a) in rioti.n:g cases discrepancies arc bound to occur in the
evidence but the duty of the court is to have regard to the broad probabilities of the
A
case; (b) in a factious village independent witnesses arc unwilling to come forward
C
and therefore the testimony of eye witnesses who may be interested in the doceased
cannot be discarded merely for that reason, provided of course the presence of the
witnesses is proved; and (c) the First Information Report docs not constitute su~
tantive evidence in the case and the mere circumstance that there arc certain
omissions in it will not justify the case being disbelieved; and gave weighty fea:SODS
fQ[ holding that the guilt of the acc'used was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
In appeal, the High Court, while acquitting others, convicted the appellants under
s. 302 read with s. 149 l.P.C.
Allowing the appeal to this Court.-
D
HELD : The Kigh Court ought not to have interfered with the order of acquittal
ven if there were two possible views or the evidence. {6S4D-E}
(a) The High Court wrongly refused to attach any importance to the circumstance
that the names of the appellants were not mentioned in the very first report to the
police and that a totally different group_ of persons were mentioned as the assailants.
The High Court held that that report could not be treated as the First Infonnation
Report under s. 154 Cr. P.C., bc: .. ause, the person who gave the Report had no personal knowledge of the incident. Buts. 154 docs not require lhat the Report must
be given by a person who has personal knowledge of the incident reported. It only
speaks of an inrormation relating to the commission of a cognizable offence given
to ·an officer in-charge of a ~olice station.
(654H-5SSC]
(b) Another rer,ort, given by the Kotwal of the village, was treated by the Hi&h
Court .as the First nformation Report. But this report wholly destroys the prosecu~
tion case, because, while the case of the prosecution was that the incident happened
on: the afternoon of the previous day, the Kotwal stated in his report that the incident
had taken place during the early hours of the day on which he gave the reponp
(6SSE-GJ
(c) In that Report also the names or the assailants were not mentioned. The
inference arising from the fact that the name of an accused is not mentioned in the
Fin:t Information Report must vary from case to case; but the High Court wholly
ignored the fact that even the Kotwal of the village had not come to know ~he names
or the assailants though 20 hours had elapsed after-the incident had taken place
nccording to the prosecution. [655G-HJ
(d) The Hi~h Court reruSed to attach any importance to the discrepancies between
the medical evidence and the evidence of the eye witnesses that the deceased were
t1ttacked with spears and axes, on the ground that the witnesses had not stated
that 'the miscreants dealt axe blows from the sharp-side or used the spears as a
piercing weapon'. The High Court explained the absence of incised er punctured
wounds by observing, without any basis, that the accused might have used the
blunt side. {656C-E]
(e) It is generally not easy to find witnesses on whose testimony implicit reliance
can be placed. It is al,vays advisable to test the evidence of witnesses on the anvil
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HALLU v. M.P. STATE (Chandrachud, ].)
653
•• : -;c , __
of objective circumstances of the case. But the High Court, in the present case,
accepted the evidence of the two a11eged eye-witnesses as implicitly re1iablr v.·ith()ut
so testing their evidence. They claimed to have seen the incident in the afterx:oon,
but if the incident toOk place at night, the whole superstructure of the prosecution
must fall. (656A,F-O)
CiUMINAL APPELLATE JURISDI~ION : Criminat Aprea! No: 142 of
1970.
Appe~l by Special Leave from the Judgnlent and Order dated lhe
27th March, 1970 of the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur in
Criminal Appeal No. 451 of 1967.
D. Mookherjea, S.K. Bagga, S. Bagga and Yash Bagga, for the
appellants.
Ram Panjwani, H. S. Parihar and_ I. N. Shroff, for the Resp?ndent.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
CHANDRACHUD, J. Eighteen persons were put up for trial before the
First Additional Sessions Judge, Durg (M. P.) for offences arising out
of the murder of two persons Jagdeo and Padum. The learned Judge
acquitted them of all the charges but that order was partly set aside by
the High Court of Madhya Pradesh which confirmed the acquittal of
eight persons and convicted the remaining ten under section 302 read
with section 149 of the Penal Code. This appeal by special leave is
directed against the judgment of the High Court under which a sentence
of life imprisonment has been imposed on the appellants.
The case of the prosecution is that on the afternoon of May 9, 1966
a group of about 18 persons including the appellants dragged Jagdeo
•and Padum from their houses and attacked them with lathis, spears and
axes. In 1965 Jagdeo and Padum were prosecuted along with 2 others
for committing the murder of one Daulatram, the Sarpanch of the
village. That case ended in acquittal and it is . alleged that Jagdeo and
Padum were done to death by the appellants who felt especially
· aggrieved by)h_e murder of the Sarpanch .
Since the High Court has set aside the order of acquittal passed by the
Sessions Court it is of primary importance to appreciate and understand
the approach cf the Sessions Court to the evidence in the case and jts
conclusions thereon. These, briefly, are the structural hallmarks of
the Se'8ions Court's judgment: (I) In rioting cases discrepancies are
bound to occur in the evidence but the duty of the court is to have regard to the broad probabilities of the case; (2) In a factious village
independent witnesses are unwilling to come .forward and therefore the testimony of eye-witnesses who are interested in the deceased
cannot be discarded merely for the reason that they are so interested,
provided of course the presence of the witnesses is proved; (3) The
First Information Report does not constitute substantive evidence in
the case and the mere circumstance that there are certain omissions in
it will not justify the case being disbelieved.
654
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1974] 3 $.C.R.
.,
Applying these broad principles the Sessions Court rejected the
evidence of the eye-witnesses and acquitted the accused. fo doing this
the court was influenced by these circumstances: (I) There
were
muteJial discrerancies as re[ards the place wh<re Jagceo was asrnultcd.
The police had taken scratchings from the walls of Jagdeo's house but
did not send them to the Chemical Analyser for ascertaining whether
they bore stains of blood; (2) The widows of Jadgeo and Padum had
stated that the two men were attacked with spears and axes but according .
to the medical evidence there. were neither incised nor punctured wounds
on the dead bodies; (3) As many as three different Reports were given to
the police station on the morning of the day following the day of the
incident but the names of the appellants were not mentioned in any one
of them; (4) Jn one of those Reports the incident was stated to have
happened at night whereas the c°'e of the prosecution is that the incident happened in broad daylight at about 1 p. m. and (5) There was no
reliable evidence showing that the accused had sufficient motive to
commit the murder.
These, in our opinion, are weighty reasons on the strength of which
the learned Sessions Judge was reasonably '.entitled to come to the
conclusion that the charge against the accused was not proved beyond
a reasonable doubt. At worst, it may perhaps be possible to say that
two views of the evidence were roasonably possible. It is well established
that in such circumstances the High Court ought not to interfere with
the order of acquittal.
We will demonstrate in reference to a few important circumstances
as to why the High Court was not justified in interfering with the oraer
ol acquittal. The incident is alleged to have taken place at about I
p. m. on May, 9, 1966 but it was not until the next morning that any
one in the village thought it necessry to report the incident to the police.
The first person who at all contacted the police after the incident was ·
Tibhu, the son of one of the murdered persons, Jagdeo.
Tibhu went
to the Rancharia Police Station at 8-15 a. m. on the 10th and told the
police that on the previous afternoon Jagdeo and Padum were murdered.
Jn that report Tibhu mentioned the names of as many as 10 persons who
according to him had participated in the assault but none of the 18
accused found a place in that long list except perhaps "Bentha Satnami"
the reference to whom Jnay by a process of some stretching be construed as a reference to one of the accused. Tibhu mad' an interesting disclosure in his evidence that he had gone to the police for lodging information about an altogether different incident and after having lodged
that information he was told by a woman called Dharmin that the eighteen accused had committed the murder of Jagdeo and Padum. Yet it
is surprising that not only did he not mention the names of the present
accused but he mentioned the names of an altogethor different group
ofpersom. This is in regard to the earliest information given to the
police in point of time.
The Report given by Tibhu thus suffers from a serious infirmity and
the Sessions Court was justified in citing that infirmity as one of the reasA
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HALLU v. M.P. ,STATE (Cha11drachud, /.)
655
ons leading to the acq'"ttal of the appellants. The High Court however
refused to attach any imp~rtanoe to the circumstance that the names of
the appellants were not mentioned in the Report on the ground that
though it was earlist in point of time it could not be treated as the First
Information Report under section 154, Criminal Procedure Code as
Tibhu had no personal knowledge of th: incident and the Report was
based on h'arsay evidence. In this view the High Court clearly erred
for section 154 does not require that the Report mu't be given by a person who has personal knowledge of the incident reported. The section
speaks J.lf an information relating to the commission of a cognizable
offence given to an officer in charge of a ·police station. Tibhu had
given such information and it was in consequence of that information
that the investigation had commenced.
At abvut 11-45 a. m. one Dharamdas who was examined in the case
as an eye-witness went to the police station and lodged information
about a totally different incident stating that a boy whose name he did
not know had beaten him with a lathi. This of course cannot be regarded as a first information report of the offence in question but the High
Court overlooked that if Dharamdas was an eye-witness and if he did
go to the police station quite a few horrs after the incident it was
strange that he did not refer to the incident at all. Dharamadas wriggled
out of an inconvenient situation by saying that as Tibhu had already
reported the incident to the police he himself did not think it necessary
to do so. The evidence of Dharmdas, we may mention, has been rejected by the trial court as well as the High Court.
Then comes yet another 'Report made to the police and that was
made by one Vishal D1s who was the Kotwar of the village in between
the two earlier Reports. Vishal Das's Report, Ex. P-47, shows that
he gave the information at the police station at about 10 a. m. on the
I 0th. This information, according to the High Court, must be treated
as the First Information Report in the case. This in our opinion, is
clearly erroneous. But apart from the legality of the finding re~orded
by the High Court Vishal Das's Report almost wholly destroys the
prosecution case. The case of the prosecution is that the incident
in question ha;ipened on the afternoon of the 9th whereas Vishal Das
stated in his Report that the inc'dent had taken place on the night of
the 10th, meaning thereby in the early hours of the 10th. Vishal
Das also stated expressly in his Report that he did not know as to
who had assaulted Jagdeo and Padum. The High Court failed to give
tilese circumstances their due weight and observed on the contrary that
the fact that the names of the assailants were not mentioned by Vishal
Das was not very material as the assault was committed by a large
group of 17 or 18 persons. The inference arising from the fact that the
names of the accused are not mentioned in a First Information Report must vary from case to case but the High Court wholly ignored
that even the Kotwar of the village had not come to know the names of
the assailants though 20 hours had elapsed after the incident had taken
place and further that according to him the incident had taken place
at night It is obvious that if the incident had taken place at night the
656
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1974) 3 !.C.R.
whole superstructure of the prosecution case must fall.
The eyewitnesses Musammat Dev Kunwar and Musammat Mahatrin claim to
have seen the incident on the supposition that it happened on the
after-noon of the 9th.
The High Court observed in its judgment that the trial court was
"mainly influenced by the so-called discrepancies in the three reports
lodged with the police".
We may point out that the trial cowt was
influenced by a variety of considerations and the discrepancies in the
three Reports are not by any standard "so-called". The discrepancies
have a fundamental importance for they tend to fal5ify the evidence of'
the eye-witnesses and show that the incident happened under cover of
darkness and was in all probability not witnessed by anyone.
The postmortem report prepared by Dr. N. L. Jain shows that on
the body of Jagcleo were found three bruises and a hematoma. On
the body of Pad um were found four lacerated wounds and two bruises.
According to the eye-witnesses the two men were attacked with lathis,
spoars and axes but that clearly stands falsified by the medical evidence.
Not one of the injuries found on the person of Jagdeo and Pad um could
be caused by a spear or an axe. The High Court however refused to
attach any importance to this aspect of the matter by saying that the
witnesses had not stated that the miscreants dealt axe blows from the
sharp-side or used the spear as a piercing weapon". ·According to the
High Court axes and spoars may have been used from the blunt side
and therefore the evidence of the eye-witnesses could safely be accepted.
We should have thought that normally when the witness says that an
axe or a spear is used there fa no warrant for supposing that what the
witness means is that the blunt side of the weapon was used. If that
be tho implication it is. the duty of the prosecution to obtain a
clarification from the witness as to whether a sharp-edged or a piercing
instrument was used as blunt weapon.
·
There is only one more observation which we would like to make
about <he judgment of the High Court. The High Court has observed
in its judgment at more than one place that Musammat Dev Kunwar
and Musammat Mahatrin we1e "implicity reliable". It 1s generally
not easy to find witnesses on whose testimony implicit reliance
can be placod. It is always advisable to test the evidence of witnesses
on the anvil of objective circumstances in the case. Not only did the
High Court not do that but by persuading itself to the view that the
two eye-witnesses were implicitly reliable it denied to itself the benefit
of a judicial consideration of the infirmities to which we have briefly
referred.
We therefore allow this app>al, set aside the order of conviction
and sentence passed by the High Court and acquit the anpellants.
They shall be released forthwith.
V.P. S.
Appeal A1/01red.
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