In Aman Singh & Anr. vs. The State of Bihar (2026), Justices Rajeev Ranjan Prasad and Sourendra Pandey of Patna High Court's Division Bench delivered a 67-page long judgement dated January 22, 2026 confirmed the death sentence in a Death Reference case of 2024 and dismissed the criminal appeal preferred by the appellants. The Judgement was authored by Justice Prasad. The second appellant was Sonal Singh. It was heard along with the criminal appeal The State of Bihar vs. Aman Singh & Anr. (2026).
The death reference registered under Section 366 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the criminal appeal preferred by the two appellants arose out of the judgment of conviction dated May 2, 2024 and the order of sentence dated May 9, 2024 passed by Additional Sessions Judge-19, Rohtas at Sasaram in Sessions Trial of 2022 arose out of a Darihat P.S. case 2021 dated July 13, 2021 registered under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code.
By the impugned judgment and order, the appellants were convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 302/34 IPC and were sentenced to death. The trial court recorded the guidelines of the Supreme Court as laid down in case of Machhi Singh vs. State of Punjab reported in AIR 1983 SC 957. It also referred the principles relied upon by the Supreme Court in case of Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab reported in (1980) 2 SCC 684. The trial court held that in this case, three unarmed persons have been ruthlessly butchered by the sword wielding convicts for a dispute pertaining to a small piece of land. Altogether five ante-mortem severe massive external and internal injuries were inflicted on the person of each of the deceased. The trial court found that consequent upon the death of the deceased persons, no male major person has been left to perform the rights and rituals ordinarily required in Hindu family. The trial court further considered as to whether there can be a justification in life imprisonment of the convicts or not. The court held that the incessant tears of the widows and the children cannot be dried out, however, by way of capital punishment, their sufferings are supposed to be mitigated. They may console themselves if convicts are awarded capital punishment. They are supposed to lead a secure and peaceful lives. On the contrary, if the convicts are awarded life imprisonment, they are supposed to come out after 14 years, only to revive the wounds of the surviving family members of the deceased. The trial court considered the aggravated factors which exist in this case. The nature and circumstances of the offence, the role of the accused in the commission of such a heinous crime of murder/massacre of the three deceased persons, the culpability of the deceased persons. The trial court held that in the facts of the case, the death penalty is the only sentence that can be given to the convicts for their offence under Section 302/34 IPC.
The appellants Aman Singh and Sonal Singh approached the High Court to pray for setting aside the impugned judgment and order of the trial court.
The informant's senior counsel relied upon the paragraph ‘13’ of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Ram Bihari Yadav vs. State of Bihar and Harendra Rai vs. State of Bihar reported in (2023) 13 SCC 563 wherein the Supreme Court had held that the three main stakeholders in a criminal trial, namely the Investigating Officer, Public Prosecutor, and the Judiciary, all utterly failed to keep up their respective duties and responsibilities cast upon them. It had taken note of the subsequent conduct of the accused and has drawn adverse inference. It had taken judicial notice of the judgment in the habeas corpus petition regarding conduct of the accused, the investigating agency, the Public Prosecutor and the Presiding Officer conducting the trial.
Amicus Curiae relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Dayal Singh vs. State of Uttranchal (2012) 8 SCC 263 to submit that it was the consistent view of the Supreme Court that if the lapse or omission is committed by the investigating agency, negligently or otherwise, the prosecution evidence was required to be examined dehors such omissions to find out whether the said evidence is reliable or not. In Paras Yadav vs. State of Bihar (1999) 2 SCC 126, the Supreme Court held that the contaminated conduct of officials should not stand in the way of evaluating the evidence by the courts, otherwise the designed mischief would be perpetuated and justice would be denied to the complainant party. The counsel relied upon the recent judgments of the Supreme Court in the case of Edakkandi Dineshan @ P. Dineshan & Ors. vs. State of Kerela 2025 INSC 28 to submit that on account of defective investigation, the benefit would not accrue to the accused persons on that ground alone. Variance in statement of witnesses if minor would not drive their testimony unworthy. In Goverdhan & Anr. vs. State of Chhattisgarh (2025) 3 SCC 378, their Lordships of the Supreme Court reiterated that minor discrepancies in details not touching the core of the case do not affect credibility and corroboration cannot be expected with mathematical precision. It was held that in case of rustic witnesses-appreciation of evidences from rural background witnesses, behavourial pattern and perceptive habits must be judged. Accordingly discrepancies, contradictions and embellishments in essential parts do not militant against the core truth if there was impress of truth and conformity to probability. The plea of alibi requires substantiation by leading evidence. It was submitted that keeping in view the judicial pronouncements when the evidences are examined, it would be found that the prosecution was duly proved the motive behind the occurrence. It was a land dispute which was the genesis of the occurrence and it was the consistent case of the prosecution right from the fardbeyan to the deposition of the prosecution witnesses, who have fully supported the prosecution case
The prosecution case was based on the fardbeyan of Shakuntala Devi, wife of Late Vijay Singh recorded by ASI Bimlesh Kumar on July 13, 2021 at 23:00 hrs. near postmortem house, Sadar Hospital, Sasaram.
In her fardbeyan, the informant, who was wife of one of the deceased and who was examined as a prosecution witness in course of trial. On July 13, 2021 at 18:00 hours, when her husband Vijay Singh and her son Deepak Singh were at home then, her Pattidars, namely, (1) Ajay Singh, (2) Sonal Singh and (3) Aman Singh started ploughing the disputed land adjacent to the house. When her husband and her son went to stop them, then they started abusing them and assaulted them with fist and lathi. Somehow, her husband and her son fled away from there to Rang Bahadur Singh’s door. After some time, the accused persons while chasing came to Rang Bahadur Singh’s door and they abused her husband and her son and also started assaulting them with lathi/danda. In the meanwhile, her younger son Rakesh Singh also came there from Dehri and on seeing his father and brother getting assaulted, after pacifying the fight he took his father and brother to his old house towards kitta. These three accused persons armed with sword while chasing them reached purana kitta and started hitting her husband and sons with sword. Sonal Singh with an intention to kill, hit her elder son Deepak Singh as a result of which he got cut on his neck, face, cheek, head and chest and blood started oozing out and he became unconscious. Aman Singh attacked her younger son Rakesh Singh with sword in his hand with an intention to kill him, Rakesh got cuts on both his hands, face, neck and head and fell unconscious. When her husband on seeing his children getting injured went to save them then Ajay Singh hit him with sword on his neck as a result of which he got a serious injury on his neck, he started bleeding profusely and he fell unconscious. Meanwhile, Gayatri Devi wife of Ajay Singh came with a spear in her hand and gave it to her husband and said that they should not be left alive, attack with this spear. Thereafter, the informant and her elder daughter-in-law reached there and asked for help from neighbouring people but no one came to help them. Thereafter, her niece Rajesh Singh, son of Rang Bahadur Singh came there and when he was getting all the injured to hospital, no villager came to help him. Then they informed the police. When police came, the police took her injured husband and two sons to hospital where doctor declared all three of them dead. On the basis of the fardbeyan of the informant, P.S. case was registered under Section 302/34 IPC. The S.H.O. Darihat (PW-5) took over the responsibility of investigation upon himself.
Justice Prasad relied on Supreme Court's decision in Ram Vijay Singh vs. State of U.P. 2021 SCC OnLine SC 142, wherein the Court had discussed the settled position that falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything) principle was foreign to our criminal law jurisprudence. A 3-Judges Bench of the Supreme Court held that “….. A part statement of a witness can be believed even though some part of the statement may not be relied upon by the Court….”. He observed:"I, therefore, find from the evidence of PW-2 and PW-3, it can be safely deduced that their depositions with regard to the place of occurrence, time of occurrence and manner of occurrence have gone unquestioned."
He noted that it is well settled that a mere delay in lodging of the FIR cannot be a ground to throw away the prosecution case. Reference in this regard is made to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Chotkau vs. State of U.P. reported in (2023) 6 SCC 742. The credibility of the prosecution witnesses would be required to be looked into.
In the case of Chotkau, the Supreme Court observed: “64. To come to the above conclusion, reliance was placed upon a decision of a three-Judge Bench in Balram Singh v. State of Punjab (2003) 11 SCC 286: 2004 SCC (Cri) 149. In Balram Singh, the three-Judge Bench of this Court rejected the contention with regard to the delay in transmitting the FIR to the Magistrate, on the ground that : (SCC p. 291, para 10) “10. … while considering the complaint in regard to the delay in the FIR reaching the jurisdictional Magistrate, we will have to also bear in mind the creditworthiness of the ocular evidence adduced by the prosecution and if we find that such ocular evidence is worthy of acceptance, the element of delay in registering a complaint or sending the same to the jurisdictional Magistrate by itself would not in any manner weaken the prosecution case.”
Justice Prasad recollected Supreme Court's decision in Baso Prasad & Ors. vs. State of Bihar reported in (2006) 13 SCC 65, wherein the Court observed, inter alia, with regard to the presence of rigor mortis in the following words:- “….. The start of rigor mortis depends on the temperature and weather conditions…” He observed: "65. I, therefore, find that in this case the prosecution case fully stands on its own legs. There is no reason to interfere with the impugned judgment of the learned trial court whereby these appellants have been convicted for the offences punishable under Section 302/34 IPC. I affirm the judgment of conviction dated 2nd May, 2024 passed in Sessions Trial No. 10 of 2022 arising out of Darihat P.S. Case No. 111 of 2021 and the direction of the learned trial court to the District Legal Services Authority, Rohtas, Sasaram for award of maximum compensation under the scheme to each of the three widows. The compensation must be paid, if not already paid, within a period of one month from the date of this judgment."
On the point of sentence, the judgement recorded the the counsel of the appellants prayed to the Court to modify the death sentence awarded to the appellants to a life imprisonment. It was submitted that although the trial court referred the judgments of the Supreme Court in Bechan Singh vs. State of Punjab 1980 (2) SCR 864 and Machhhi Singh & Ors. vs. State of Punjab (1983) 3 SCC 470: 1983 Supreme Court Cases (Cri) 681, it did not take into consideration the mitigating circumstances including that there are chances of reformation of the appellants. The counsel relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Navas @ Mulanavas Vs. State of Kerala (2024) 14 SCC 82. The Court's attention was drawn towards various case laws discussed by the Supreme Court to lay down the principle of proportionality.
Justioce Prasad appreciated trial court's judgement which noticed that none of the convicts was injured in the occurrence, the severity and brutalities of the offences committed by the convicts would no way justify their acts. The other two accused persons have been absconding till date and they have not surrendered before the court nor they have been arrested. The matter could have been resolved through civil litigation but the temperament of the convicts did not suit the same.
In his 2-page long concurring judgement, Justice Pandey observed: "72. I have gone through the judgment recorded by my esteemed brother, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad. While I entirely agree with the views expressed above, I am reminded of the great epic “Mahabharat” which is a tale of devastating feud over land and power between cousins. The Kauravas were the aggressors, who attempted to kill relatives for property or to seize the reign of the empire. Mahabharat culminates with a message that aggressors meet a tragic end as divine punishment for their “adharm”, i.e. to try to kill their brother (cousins) to seize power. 73. The story of Mahabharat leads us to one and only one conclusion that the appellants, who were the aggressors should be punished for their sin/crime, which has not only taken the three human lives but have also killed three women who after loosing their husbands have become lifeless, their children have been left to cry all over their lives and therefore I uphold the conviction of the appellants. I agree that it is one of the rarest of the rare cases in which the option to impose sentence of imprisonment of life or a special sentencing cannot be consciously exercised. I confirm the sentence imposed by the learned trial court."
No comments:
Post a Comment