Legal Reference Library

In Asraf Biswas Vs. State of West Bengal, the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court held that place of occurrence is of paramount importance and once it is held that the place of occurrence has not been established beyond all reasonable doubts, then the other circumstances are hardly sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused.

The Supreme Court in Yogesh Singh Vs. Mahabeer Singh, has held that the burden on the prosecution is only to establish its case beyond all reasonable doubt and not all doubts and the rule regarding the benefit of doubt does not warrant acquittal of the accused by resorting to surmises, conjectures or fanciful considerations. A bench comprising Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy set aside an Allahabad High Court judgment which had acquitted the accused in a murder case and restored the conviction recorded by the trial court. Referring to State of U.P. vs. Krishna Gopal and Anr. and State of Punjab Vs. Jagir Singh, the court observed: “It is a cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence that the guilt of the accused must be proved beyond all reasonable doubts. However, the burden on the prosecution is only to establish its case beyond all reasonable doubt and not all doubts.” The bench observed that the accused was not per se entitled for acquittal on the ground of non...

Unlawful Assembly; Bhagwan Jagannath Markad Vs. State of Maharashtra [Supreme Court of India, 04-10-2016] Sections 147, 149, 302 read with Sections 149, 324 and 326 of the Indian Penal Code Padam Singh v. State of U.P., (2000) 1 SCC 621 Devatha Venkataswamy v. Public Prosecutor, High Court of A.P., (2003) 10 SCC 700 Narendra Singh v. State of M.P., (2004) 10 SCC 699 Prasanna Das v. State of Orissa, (2004) 13 SCC 30 Majjal v. State of Haryana, (2013) 6 SCC 798 Lalita Kumari v. Govt. of U.P., (2014) 2 SCC 1 Baby alias Sebastian versus Central Inspector of Police, (2016) 7 Scale 444 Damodar v. State of Rajasthan, (2004) 12 SCC 336 Mano Dutt & Anr. v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2012) 4 SCC 79 Sanjeev v. State of Haryana, (2015) 4 SCC 387 A. Shankar v. State of Karnataka, (2011) 6 SSC 279 State of Karnataka v. Suvarnamma & Anr., (2015) 1 SCC 323 Bava Hajee Hamsa v. State of Kerala, (1974) 4 SCC 479 Patai Alias Krishna Kumar v. State U.P., (2010) 4 SCC 429 Ravishwar M...

Bombay High Court : Allowing an appeal preferred against the trial court verdict, A.R. Joshi, J., acquitted film star Salman Khan of all the criminal charges, and held that the prosecution failed to discharge its burden of proving the charges beyond reasonable doubt. The appellant was alleged to have run his car, under the influence of alcohol, over a group of persons sleeping on the footpath on 28th September, 2002. Earlier, the Trial Court had found him guilty of various offences under the Penal Code, 1860 including causing death by negligence against which the present appeal was preferred. After persual of the arguments, the Court held that prima facie the case cannot be entertained on its merit due to lack of substantial evidence and failure of the prosecution to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. The Court stated that the report brought by the prosecution for the intoxication of the appellant, did not match the standard of proof required for establishing the charges.  Th...

Conviction only on the basis of suspicion and circumstantial evidences is unjustified CASE BRIEFSSUPREME COURT Published on January 1, 2016By Editor Leave a comment1732 views   DSC_5487 Supreme Court: While deciding upon the issue that whether an accused can be convicted only on the basis of suspicion and circumstantial evidence without any direct proof given by the prosecution, the Division Bench of V. Gopala Gowda and Amitava Roy, JJ., held that it would be unjustified to convict an accused only on the basis of suspicion and circumstantial evidence until and unless that evidences are corroborative with direct proof given by the prosecution. The Court thereby set aside the decision of High Court of Patna and held that an accused cannot be convicted until and unless all charges against him are proved beyond any reasonable doubt by the prosecution. The appellant and deceased were husband and wife, while returning from their honeymoon the deceased went missing. The prosecutio...