The Allahabad High Court has observed that witnesses to a sudden and gruesome crime cannot be expected to narrate events with “photographic precision” and that criminal courts must focus on the substance of the prosecution case rather than trivial inconsistencies that do not affect its core.
A Division Bench of Justice Rajnish Kumar and Justice Zafeer Ahmad made the observation while dismissing a criminal appeal filed by a murder convict challenging his conviction under Section 302 IPC for the killing of a man in Sitapur district in 2002. The Court upheld the trial court’s judgment and affirmed the life sentence awarded to the appellant.
The appellant argued that the prosecution case was riddled with contradictions regarding the place from where the alleged weapon was recovered, the manner of recovery, the medical evidence, and the testimonies of eyewitnesses. It was contended that these discrepancies rendered the prosecution story unreliable.
Rejecting the contention, the High Court held that criminal courts are required to distinguish between material contradictions that strike at the root of the prosecution case and minor discrepancies arising from normal errors of observation, lapse of memory, difference in perception, or passage of time. The Bench observed that witnesses who observe a violent incident from different positions and under psychological stress cannot be expected to recount every detail with exactitude.
The Court emphasised that evidence cannot be appreciated in a hyper-technical manner and that criminal trials are concerned with the substance of the prosecution case rather than peripheral variations. It further observed that rustic villagers witnessing a sudden occurrence cannot be expected to describe geographical locations, distances or movements with mathematical accuracy.
Applying these principles, the Bench held that inconsistencies regarding whether the weapon was found near a ditch, a field boundary or an adjoining field were natural and inconsequential. Such variations did not undermine the consistent prosecution version that the accused assaulted the deceased with a spade and fled from the scene.
The Court also rejected challenges based on alleged infirmities in the FIR, omissions in the inquest report, non-examination of the scribe of the written complaint, and claimed inconsistencies between medical and ocular evidence. It held that the eyewitness account was reliable, stood substantially corroborated by medical evidence, and successfully established the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed and the conviction affirmed. However, since the appellant had already been released on remission in 2019, the Court clarified that he was not required to surrender unless wanted in any other case.
