An appellate court maintains the authority to review evidence post-acquittal; however, the presumption of innocence and the need for compelling circumstantial evidence remain paramount.

JUDGMENT

Vinod Chandran, J.

Chandrappa and others v. State of Karnataka (2007 (4)

SCC 415) restated the principles regarding the scope of the power of appellate Court to re-appreciate, review or reconsider evidence and interfere with an acquittal. The general principles were encapsulated in the following manner:

42. From the above decisions, in our considered view, the following general principles regarding powers of the appellate court while dealing with an appeal against an order of acquittal emerge:

(1) An appellate court has full power to review, re-appreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded.

(2) The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such power and an appellate court on the evidence before it may reach its own conclusion, both on questions of fact and of law.

(3) Various expressions, such as, “substantial and compelling reasons”, “good and sufficient grounds”, “very strong circumstances”, “distorted conclusions”, “glaring mistakes”, etc. are not intended to curtail extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature of “flourishes of language” to emphasise the reluctance of an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to its own conclusion.

(4) An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that in case of acquittal, there is double presumption in favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of innocence is available to him under the fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and strengthened by the trial court.

(5) If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court”.

2. The above appeal arises from an acquittal by the trial Judge. The appellant is the wife of the deceased. The offence is one under Sec.302; according to the prosecution a premeditated one, carried out in the dark, brutally and repeatedly hitting the face of the deceased with a hammer, by the accused who had prior enmity against the deceased and was last seen together with the deceased. We heard Sri.Kodoth Sreedharan for the appellant, Sri.Madhu.T for the 2nd respondent and the learned Public Prosecutor Sri.Alex M Thombra.

3. Sri.Kodoth Sreedharan submits that the learned trial Judge has egregiously erred in acquitting the accused on mere surmises and conjectures. There is clear evidence as to the enmity, the last seen theory and there was no cause to find the accused not guilty. The recoveries under Sec.27 also was another circumstance in the chain of circumstances; in this case where there is no ocular witness. The trend of cross-examination and the responses under S.313 Cr.PC indicates a total denial. This is a classic case of last seen together and the accused has a duty to explain what happened to the deceased, failing which an adverse inference can be drawn as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Prahlad v. State of Rajasthan [ (2019) 14 SCC 438 ]. The learned Counsel also relies on the following decisions: Sunil Clifford Daniel v. State of Punjab [ (2012) 11 SCC 205 ], Madhu Alias Madhuranatha and another v. State of Karnataka [(2014)

12 SCC 419].

4. Sri.Madhu.T., the learned Counsel appearing for the 2nd respondent, would point out that all the witnesses are interested witnesses especially since they are related to the deceased. For the inquest and the recovery, though there were a number of locals gathered, the Police picked out the relatives of the deceased to be the witnesses. The recovery under Sec.27 cannot be believed since the recoveries were made from the immediate vi