SANWAT SINGH & OTHERS v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN
Citation: [1961] 3 S.C.R. 120; 1960 INSC 256
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: SYED JAFFER IMAM , K. SUBBA RAO, RAGHUBAR DAYAL
Judgment date:
Case summary
1960 INSC 256. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1960-12-09. SANWAT SINGH & OTHERS v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
120 SUPREME COURT BEPORTS [1961) SANW AT SINGH & OTHERS December 9. v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN (JAFER IMAM, K. ·SuBBA RAO and RAGHUB. AR DAYAL, JJ. ) Appeal-Against acquittal-Principles to be /ollcwed- "Substantial and compelling reason"--Meaning and scope of-Power of Co11rt-Constitution of India, Art. 136. There \Vere t\v. o rival factions in a certain village one con-sisting of Rajputs and the other of cultivators. On a particular festival day both the groups went to a temple for worship and cultivators who reached the temple first occupied a place therein which was usually occupied by Rajputs. Subsequently Rajputs arrived and resented the occupation of the silting place by the cultivators. They shifted to a short distance and after holding a brief conference came back to the temple and attacked the cultivators with guns, swords and lathis as a result of which several persons were injured and t\VO were killed. 43 persons alleged to hav...
: taken part in the rioting 'vere put up for trial before the Sessions Judge for having committed offences under s. 302 read with s. 149 ands. r4b of the Indian Penal Code. The Sessions Judge held that a common object on the part of the accused to kill the cultivators had not been established and that it had also not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused were guilty of a particular offence. On these findings the Sessions Judge acquitted all the accused. On appeal the High Court after examining the entire evidence found some of the accused guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under 3. 304 read with s. r49 and s. 148 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to various terms of imprisonment. The appeal in respect of sorne other accused was dismissed as no case had been made out against them beyond any reasonable doubt.
On appeal by special leave against the conviction and sentence by the High Court, Held, that the words "substantial and compelling reasons" for setting aside an order of acquittal used by this Court in its decisions were intended to convey the idea that t'. l. n appellate court shall not only bear in mind the principles laid down by the Privy Council in Shea Swarufs case but must also give its clear reasons for coming to the conclusion thal the order of acquittal was wrong. The following results emanate from a discussion 0!
the case law on appeals against acquittal:- (1) an appellate court has full power to review the evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded; (z) the principles laid down in Sheo Swarup's case afford a correct guide for the 1960 appellate court's approach to a case disposing of such an appeal; (3) the different phraseology used in the judgments of this Court, Sanwal Singh such as (I) "substantial and compelling reasons", (II) "good and & Olhers sufficiently cogent reasons", and (III) "strong reasons", are not v.
intended to curtail the undoubted power of an appellate Court State of Rajaslha1 in an appeal against acquittal to review the entire evidence and to some to its own conclusion, but in doing so it should not only consider every matter on record having a bearing on the questions of fact and the reasons given by the Court below in support of its order of acquittal in arriving at a conclusion on those facts, but should express the reasons in its judgment, which led it to hold tbat the acquittal was not justified. Sheo Swarup v. King Emperor, (1934) L. R. 6r I. A. 398, considered and followed. Nur Mohammad v. Emperor, A. LR. 1945 P. C. 151, Surajpal Singh v. The State, [1952] S. C. R. _193, Ajmer Singh v. The State of Punjab, [1953] S. C. R 418, P: of the facts of the case, interference under section 417 is not justifiable unless there are really strong reasons for reversing that view.
" It may be noticed that the learned Judge equated "substantial and compelling reasons" with "strong reasons". Kapur, J. , in Bhagwan Das v. State of Rajasthan (') referred to the earlier decisions and observed that the High Court should not set a. side an acquittal unless there are "substantial and compelling reasons" for doing so. In Balbir Singh v. State of Punjab ('), this Court observed much to the same effect thus at p. 222: "It is now well settled that though the High Court has full power to review the evidence upon which an order of acquittal is founded, it is equally well settled that the presumption of innocence of the accused person is further reinforced by his acquittal by the trial Court and the views of the trial Judge as to the credibility of the witnesses must be given proper weight and consideration; and the slowness of an appellate Court in disturbing a. finding of fact arrived at by a.
Judge who had the ad vantage of seeing the witnesses must also be kept in mind, and there must be substantial and compelling reasons for the a. ppellate Court to come to a. conclusion different from that of the trial Judge. " These observations only restate the principles la. id down by this Court in earlier decisions. There are (1) [1955) 2 S. C. R. 1285, (2) [1953) S. C. R. •18, ••lo (3) A. l. R. 1957 S. C. s8g. (•) A. 1. R. 19S7 S. C. 216. other decisions of this Court where, without discussion, this Court affirmed the judgments of the High Courts where they interfered with an order of acquit-ta! without violating the principles laid down by the Privy Council. State There is no difficulty in applying the principles laid down by the Privy Council, and accepted by this Court, to the facts of each case. But appellate courts are finding considerable difficulty in understanding the scope of the words "substantial and compelling reasons" used by this Court in the decisions cited above.
This Court obviously did not and could not add a condition to s. 417 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The words were intended to convey the idea that an appellate court not only shall bear in mind the principles laid down by the Privy Council but also must give its clear reasons for coming to the conclusion that the order of acquittal was wrong. The foregoing discussion yields the following results: (1) an appellate court has full power to review th!
l evidence upon which the order of acquittal is founded; (2) the principles laid down iil Sheo Swarup's case(') afford 11 correct guide for the appellate court's approach to a case in disposing of such an appeal; and (3) the different phraseology used in the judgments of this Court, such as, (i) "substantial and compelling reasons", (ii) "good and sufficiently cogent reasons", and (iii) "strong reasons" are not intended to curtail the undoubted power of an appellate court in an appeal against acquittal to review the entire evidence and to come to its own conclusion; but in doing so it should. not only consider every matter on record having a bearing on the questions of fact and the reasons given by the court below in support of its order of acquittal in its arriving at a conclusion on those facts, but should also exprese those reasons in its judgment, which lead it to hold that the acquittal was not justified.
With· this background we shall now look at the judgment of the Sessions Judge and that of the High (1) (1934) L. R. 61 LA. 398. Court to ascertain whether the High Court anywhere departed from the principles laid down by the Privy Council. The framework of the judgment of the learned ... Sessions Judge may be shortly stated thus: The first question was whether the case of the prosecution that the . Rajputs met under a banyan tree, conspired to beat the Jats and came back to the temple armed with weapons was true. This fact was spoken to by several eye-witnesses, ihchtding Goga (P. W. l), Chandra. (P. W. 2) and Do9ngar Singh (P. W. 21). This fact was also mentioned iii the First Information Report lodged by Doongar ~i~h (P. W. 21). There were 20 eye-witnesses who spoke about the conspiracy; and, ciut of them, P. Ws. 5, 8, 9, II, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24 and 25 received injuries during the riot. The learned Sessions Judge considered the evidence of P. Ws.
I and 2 and rejected it on unsubstantial grounds and on the basis of insignificant discrepancies. Therefter, he noticed that all the other ey. ,-witriesses, with slight and inconsequential variations, spoke to the fact of their returning from the banyan tree with lathies, swords and guns, but he did not give a definite finding whether he accepted that evidence or not, though at the fag end of . the judgment he found that he could not hold that the assembly of Rajputs had any common object of killing anybody. Then the learned Sessions Judge proceeded to consider whether any of the Ra. jputs were recognized by any of the witnesses. He divided the accused into three groups, namely, (i) those accused who were amongst the Rajputs when they had come for d. arshan of Ba. iji, (ii) those ·accused who were amongst the Rajputs when they returned from the banyan. tree but for whom the evidence of taking pa.
rt in the actual rioting is divided, and (iii) those accused for whom most of the eye-witnesses h~ve stated that they had committed rioting and inflicted injuries on the assembly of cultivators. Ta. king the first group, the learned Sessions J ndge, for the reasons given by him earlier, rejected the evidence of Goga and Chandra, pointed out that 28 accused had not been named unanimously by all the eye-witnesses, noticed that there was long standing enmity between z96o the Rajputs and the cultivators, and laid down a Sanwal Singh criterion that, for determining the presence of any & Othm particular accused, there should be an allegation . v against him about doing any overt act in the unlawful State of h'ajasth .. assembly. By applying the said yardstick he held that none of the accused falling in the first group, which Subba Rao J. included appellants 7, 8 and 9, was guilty of the offences with which they were charged.
Coming to the second category, with which we are not concerned in this appeal, the learned Sessions Judge again a ppli -ed the test that an overt act should be proved against each of the accused and held that no case had been made out against them. Adverting to the third group, after noticing that 12 of the eye-witnesses were those who received injuries, the learned Sessions Judge applied another test for accepting their evidence. In effect and substance the test adopted by him was that an accused identified only by one witness and not proved to have done any overt act should be acquitted by giving him the benefit of doubt. Applying this test to the said witnesses he held that the said accused were not guilty. After considering the evidenc. e in the aforesaid manner, he came to the following final conclusion: "I cannot hold that the assembly of Rajputs had any common object of killing anybody. All happened at the spur of the moment.
Those Rajputs who took part in the rioting have not been truthfully named. Innocent persons have been implicated and the cases of those persons who are alleged to have committed any overt acts are also full of doubts. " On appeal the learned Judges of the High Court, as already stated, allowed the appeal in respect of the 9 appellants and dismissed it in regard to the others. The learned Judges of the High Court observed that it had not the slightest hesitation in holding that the case put forward by the prosecution, by and large, represented the substantial truth and that the inci-dents at tile banyan tree were true. They pointed out that the reasons given by the Sessions Judge for not believing the evidence of the main witnesses, Goga and Chandra, who spoke as to what happened at the banyan tree, could not be sustained and that the alleged discrepancies and contradictions in their evidence were not such as to detract from truthful- Rajasthan ness.
We have also gone through the evidence of Goga and Chandra and. we entirely. apree with the observations of the learned Judges of. ;th~ High Court that their evidence was natural and consistent and that the alleged discrepancies pointed out by the Sessions Judge were not either contradictions at all or, even if they were so, they were so trivial as to affect in any way their veracity. The learned Judges fur- ~her pointed out that the evidence of Goga and Chandra was supported by the evidence of Doongar Singh (P. W. 21), a police constable, who gave the First Information Report at the earliest point of time. The recitals in the First Information Report corroborate his evidence. The learned Judges then indicated that this version was practically supported by other eye-witnesses and that they did not see any reason why it should have been invented, ifit was not true.
Having regard to the said evidence, they found themselves entirely unable to accept the conclusion of the learned trial Judge that this was a case where a stray beating was given by some individuals on the side of the Rajputs to some individuals on the side of the Jats. They found that the Rajputs were members of an unlawful assembly and that they were all animated by a common object of beating the cultivators. Having held that the learned Sessions Judge was clearly wrong on th~ question of unlawful assembly, the learned Judges procet;ded to consider the case of each accused. They adopted the following princi pie, based upon the decision of this Court in Abdul Gani 1 v. State of M. P.
( ): "\Ve quite recognise that in a case of rioting where two inimical factions are involved, exaggera-tions are bound to be made, and some innocent persons are likely to be falsely implicated; but all the same, it is the duty of the courts not to throw out the whole case by following the easy method of (1) A. LR. 1954 S. C. 31. relying on discrepancies, and, where the case f~r '9 the prosecution is substantially true, to find out 1f sanwat Singh any of the accused participated in the offence, and . ,, Othm if their presence is established beyond all reasonable v. doubt, punish them for the offencAS committed by State of Rajasthan them. " Subba Rao ].
They found, on the evidence, that appellant I, Sanwat Singh, who was present on the spot was a mem-ber of the unlawful assembly and had actually struck Sheonath with his sword as a result of which his three fingers were cut; that appellant 2, Dhan Singh, was ohe of the persons who took a leading part in the beating; that appellant 3, Mangej Singh, was undoub-tedly one of the participants in the unlawful assembly; that appellant 4, Kalu Singh, was armed with a sword and attacked the Jats and that his version that he had been first attacked by the J ats was not true; that appellant 5, Narain Singh, was one of the members of the unlawful assembly and that he had given beatings to P. W. 25; that appellant 6, Guiab Singh, struck Sheokaran Jat with lathics; and that appellant 7, Sabal Singh, appellant 8, Baney Singh, and appellant 9, Inder Singh, who admitted their pre~enc1> at the spot but stated that they were attacked by the Jats, were clearly participators in the beating.
As regards the other accused, the learned Judges,_ having examined the entire evidence, agreed with the Sessions Judge in holding that no case had been made out against those accused beyond all reasonable doubt. So far as these accused are concerned there is no evidence to show that any of them had a weapon or that they had taken any active part in assaulting one or other of the J ats. In the result, the learned Judges of the High Court found that the appellants formed an unlawful assembly to beat the ,fats and that they must have known that murders were likely to be committed in prosecution of that common object. On that finding, they convicted and sentenced the appellants as stated earlier"in the judgment. Now, can it be said that, as learned counsel for the appellants argues, the ,Judges of the High Court had ignored any of the principles laid down by the Privy . Council and subsequently accepted by this Court? We think not. Th f' . j .
f · e oregomg ana ys1s o the findings of the two courts discloses the following facts: The Sessions Rajasthan Judge, on the general case of the prosecution that the Rajputs, chagrined by the attitude of the J ats in occupying their usual place in the temple, went to the banyan tree, conferred for a short time and came back to the temple to attack the Jats, rejected the evidence of the main witnesses for the prosecution, namely, Goga, Chandra and Doongar Singh, on grounds which do not stand a moment's scrutiny and ignored the voluminous evidence, which corroborated the evidence of the said three witnesses, without giving valid or acceptable reasons for the same. The learned Sessions Judge did not even give a definite finding on this version of the prosecution case, though impliedly he must be deemed to have rejected it. In regard to the individual cases he divided the witnesses into three categories, and, applying mechanical tests, refused to act upon their evidence.
The High Court rightly pointed out that there was no reason why the voluminous evidence in support of the general case and why the evidence of the three witnesses, Goga, Chandra and Doongar Singh, should be rejected. The learned Judges of the High Court accepted their evidence, which conclusiveljy established that the general case was true and that the appellants actually took active part in attacking the Jats with swords. and lathies. In doing so, the learned Judges did not depart from any of the princi pies laid down by the Privy Council. Indeed, they interfered with the judgment of the Sessions Judge, as they came to the conclusion that the said judgment, in so far as the appellants were concerned, was clearly wrong and contrary to the over-whelming and reliable evidence adduced in the case. The learned Judges of the High Court, in our opinion, approached the case from a correct perspective and gave definite findings on a consideration of the entire evidence.
The question now is, whether the appellants have made out any case for interference with the judgment of the High Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution. Article 136 of the Constitution confers ·a wide dis-cretionary power on this Court to entertain appeals· . 'd d ,. b h in suitable cases not oth,erw1se prov1 e ior y t e Constitution. It is implicit in the reserve power that it ca. nnot be exhaustively defined, but decided cases state do not permit interference unless "by disregard to the forms of legal process or some violation of the principles of natural justice or otherwise, substantial and grave injustice has been done". Though Art. 136 is couched in widest terms, the practice of this Court is not to interfere on questions of fact except iu exceptional cases when the finding is such that it shocks the conscience of the court.
In the present case, the High Court has not contravened any of the principles laid down in Shea Swarup's case(') and has also given reasons which led it to hold that the acquittal was not jilstified. In the circumstances, no case has ? een made out for our not accepting the said find-mgs. In the result, the appeal fails and is dismissed. Appeal dismissed,. KISHAN CHAND ARORA v. COMMISSIONER OP POLICE, CALCUTT A (B. P. SINHA, c. J. , J. L. KAPUR, P. B. GAJENDRAGAD- KAR, K. SUBBA RAO and K. N. WANCHoo, JJ. ) Eating House-Power to grant license-Discretion vested in Police Commissioner - Constitutionality - Calcutta Police Act, r866 (IV of r866), s. 39-Constitution of India, Arts. r9(r)(g), r9(6). By s.
39 of the Calcutta Police Act, 1866, "The Commis-s_ioner of Police, may, at his discretion from time t~ time, grant licenses to the keepers of such houses or places of public resort and entertainment as aforesaid for which no licence as is specified in the Bengal Excise Act, 1909, is required upon such conditions, (1) (1934) L. R. 61 I. A. 398.
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