Disclosure of victim's hideout to murderers does not make a person part of unlawful assembly: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that merely because a person disclosed the hideout of a victim to the murderers, cannot be ground to hold that such a person was part that unlawful assembly sharing a common object with the members of the assembly [Taijuddin v. State of Assam and Others]..A Division Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh stressed on the caution to be exercised by courts while dealing with offences charged against passive onlookers. "The Court must guard against the possibility of convicting mere passive onlookers who did not share the common object of the unlawful assembly. There must be reasonable direct or indirect circumstances which lend assurance to the prosecution case that they shared common object of the unlawful assembly," the Court said.It, therefore, acquitted one Taijuddin (appellant), who along with 31 others had been convicted of rioting, unlawful assembly and murder.The appellant was responsible for disclosing the hideout of the victim to the murderous mob. He along with 31 others were charged with offences under under Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (offence committed by an unlawful assembly in prosecution of a common object) 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information) of the Indian Penal Code.The trial court had convicted the appellant holding that te appellant had accompanied the accused persons in chasing the victim and therefore, there was a common intention to kill the victim. The same was upheld by the Gauhati High Court..On appeal, the Supreme Court took a different view noting that the presence of the appellant at the scene was due to the fact that his house was adjacent to that of the victim and that he never came with the mob."He certainly did not come along with the mob. That does not preclude him from being part of the mob or acquiring the common intention at that stage, but then that is not what happened. He was carrying no weapon and he did not assault anybody. The finding of his accompanying the mob is not sustainable on the basis of the evidence," the Court said.Additionally, the Court noted that since the murderous mob was fully-armed, the mere fact that appellant had disclosed the hideout of the victim by itself cannot rope in the appellant under Section 149 of the IPC.In this regard, the Court referred to its 2014 decision in Subhal Ghorai v. State of West Bengal (2014) 4 SCC 607, in which it was held that concept constructive liability must not be so stretched as to lead to false implication of innocent bystanders. "Quite often, people gather at the scene of offence out of curiosity. They do not share common object of the unlawful assembly. If a general allegation is made against large number of people, Court has to be cautious. It must guard against the possibility of convicting mere passive onlookers who did not share the common object of the unlawful assembly," the Court emphasised. .In the present case, the Court noted that certain witnesses did not even assign any role to the appellant while some other witnesses who did, only said that the appellant had pointed out the place where the victim was hiding."Inasmuch as the family members never even pointed a finger at the appellant as also some of the other witnesses, while the witnesses who did point a finger only assigned the role of pointing out the place where the victim was hiding, coupled with his natural presence at site, we cannot, thus, say that by any stretch of imagination the case against the appellant has been proved beyond reasonable doubt or for that matter really no case seems to have been proved against the appellant given the role assigned to him in the testimony of the witnesses," the Court ruled.It, therefore, set aside the conviction of the appellant. Advocates Amir Phukan, V Shymohan, Surya Prakash, Ashkrit Tiwari, Astu Khandelwal and Anisha Mathur appeared for the appellant.Advocate-on-Record Debojit Borkakati appeared for the respondents..[Read Judgment]