The benefit of doubt, if any, be given to the accused, the principles which were laid down by the Supreme Court in the matter of Hanumant Govind Nargundkar vs. State of M.P. reported in (1952) 2 SCC 71. Recalling this decision, Patna High Court's Division Bench led by Justice V.M. Pancholi set aside the impugned judgment of conviction dated September 4, 2014 passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, III, Khagaria in Sessions Trial of 2010 arising out of a case of 2010. The appellant was convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and fine of Rs.10,000. The accused/appellant was acquitted of the charges levelled against him by the High Court's judgement dated August 25, 2023 in Amarnath Swarnkar vs. The State of Bihar (2023) was authored by Justice Chandra Shekhar Jha.
The High Court was took a guidance from Supreme
Court's decision in Sarad Vridhi Chandra Sarda vs. State of Maharashtra
reported in 1984 (4) SCC 116, wherein the principles of “Panchsheel” was
laid down, which must require to be established in a case based upon
circumstantial evidence, as of present, which is as under:-
152. "It
is well to remember that in cases where the evidence is of a
circumstantial nature, the circumstances from which the conclusion of
guilt is to be drawn should in the first instance be fully established
and all the facts so established should be consistent only with the
hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. Again, the circumstances should
be of a conclusive nature and tendency and they should be such as to
exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved. In other
words, there must be a chain of evidence so far complete as not to leave
any reasonable ground far a conclusion consistent with the innocence of
the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human
probability the act must have been done by the accused."
153. A close analysis of this decision would show that the following conditions must be fulfilled before a case against an accused can be said to be fully established: (1) the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established. It may be noted here that this Court indicated that the circumstances concerned 'must or should' and not 'may be' established. There is not only a grammatical but a legal distinction between 'may be proved' and 'must be or should be proved' as was held by this Court in Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra (') where the following observations were made: "Certainly, it is a primary principle that the accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a court can convict and the mental distance between 'may be' and 'must be' is long and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions." (2) The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say. they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty, (3) the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency. (4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved, and (5) there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.
154. These five golden principles, if we may say so, constitute the panchsheel of the proof of a case based on circumstantial evidence."
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