The Supreme Court In the matter of Maghavendra Pratap Singh @ Pankaj Singh v/s state of Chattisgarh reversed the conviction in the murder case which was imposed by the trial court and later on, affirmed by High Court on the ground that the investigating officer did not meet the obligations under chapter xii of CrPc 1973.

Background–

A businessman was shot by two motorcyclists he succumbed to injuries when taken to hospital. A fir was registered against the appellant and several others.

The trial court acquitted one and convicted and sentenced seven under various provisions of IPC.

When the case went to an appeal before the high court the high court acquitted all the accused persons except the appellant.

The court observed-

Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sanjay Karol notice that the investigating officer has a statutory duty to bring the offenders to book and facilitate the search for truth as well as has a constitutional obligation to ensure the maintenance of the rule of law.

The court observed that the case of the prosecution is based on circumstantial evidence and neither of the two independent witnesses supported the prosecution’s case therefore nothing substantial can be taken out from their disposition to prove the accused guilty.

The court, upon considering the testimony of one of the two witnesses, found that the police threatened them and took their signature on blank paper to strengthen their case.

The court observed that the testimony of the investigating officer failed to investigate the case.

It also revealed that the appellant was not present at the spot of the crime and only was dragged into the case as an accused on the basis of disclosure statements of the co-accused.

The Investigating officer did not record the appellant & other accused person’s statement by himself or by any other person under his instruction & there is no evidence to prove the report and as the expert who conducted the chemical analysis and the author of the report were not examined.

The investigating officer did not record any case diary or return communication to show that the appellant was called to the police station and no information about the arrest was given to the family members. 

The court considered that the applicant was arrested from other states without providing any information to their relatives which is a violation of the law laid down in DK Basu V State of West Bengal 1997.

The court did not find truth in the investigating officer’s testimony due to the following reasons:-

No Examination was done of the owner of the house from where recovery was made;

No entry was made in the case diary of any movement;

There was no record that the accused was taken for effecting the recovery;

There was no clear description of the area from whether recovery was affected;

The independent witnesses admitted did not belong to the area from where the recoveries were affected;

It did not associate/ examine any of the residents of the area for conducting the search & further investigation;

The officer admitted that both the memo of arrest and the recovery was not prepared by him or were not under his signature and also has many corrections on overwriting which reduces the correctness and authenticity of the document;

The officer was not clear about the description of the recovered articles.

The Apex court observed that there is nothing on record to suggest that the appellant had committed the murder and to prove the offense of criminal conspiracy it is essential to show a meeting of minds between the conspirators for the intended common object. 

Also since all the other accused had been acquitted of the charge, criminal conspiracy fails as one person cannot hatch a conspiracy.

The Apex Court concluded that the High Court did not appreciate the testimonies of the witnesses and their true meaning and without any discussion on the complicity of the accused tried the case hurriedly or casually and thus the Supreme Court reversed the conviction order.