The Supreme Court on Monday (December 8) overturned the conviction of a man accused of murder, holding that the prosecution failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt due to a key omission in the First Information Report. Despite the informant allegedly being aware of the accused’s identity, no name was mentioned in the FIR — a lapse the Court found fundamentally damaging to the prosecution’s narrative.

The bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta observed that the FIR was filed by the deceased’s father on the basis of the account given by the deceased’s wife (PW-2), the sole eyewitness. Although she later claimed to have identified one of the masked assailants — the appellant, her brother-in-law — this detail was introduced only four days later in her Section 161 CrPC statement.

The incident occurred in a village in Chhattisgarh where two masked men allegedly dragged the victim from his farm hut at night and killed him. PW-2 initially stated that the attackers were unknown. The prosecution attempted to justify the absence of the appellant’s name in the FIR by citing her shock and ill health following the attack.

Authoring the judgment, Justice Vikram Nath rejected this explanation, stating that PW-2 had narrated every other detail — from the attackers’ physique to their movements — making the failure to immediately disclose recognition “inherently improbable.” The Court remarked that this contradiction suggested that a later “story” was introduced to fill the gap in evidence.

Referring to Ram Kumar Pandey v. State of M.P. (AIR 1975 SC 1026), the bench reiterated that when the identity of the culprit is allegedly known at the inception but not recorded in the FIR, the omission becomes a material circumstance under Section 11 of the Evidence Act and severely undermines the prosecution’s version.

Holding the omission to be “fatal,” the Court said it “goes to the very root of the matter” and completely erodes the credibility of the case presented by the State. With the delayed identification discarded, no reliable evidence remained linking the accused to the offence.

Consequently, the appeal was allowed and the appellant was acquitted of all charges.

Cause Title: Govind Mandavi v. State of Chhattisgarh