Madhya Pradesh High Court acquits two in murder case, orders probe into planting of witnesses

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently directed the State Director General of Police (DGP) to conduct a departmental inquiry against an Investigating Officer (IO) and other police personnel for planting witnesses in a murder case [Nein Singh Dhruve and Others vs The State of Madhya Pradesh].

The Division Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh passed the direction while acquitting a father-son duo in a case dating back to 2021. The Court also directed the DGP to issue appropriate guidelines for proper investigation by the police. 

“Let enquiry be conducted as to what makes them to implant false witnesses to take away life and liberty of innocent citizens and the report be furnished within thirty days thereafter,” the Court ordered. 

The deceased victim, Rajendra, had gone missing in September 2021 and was later found dead with his private parts chopped off. The police arrested Nain Singh Dhruve and his son Sandeep Kumar Dhurve (accused).

It was claimed that Rajendra was murdered by the accused because he was in a relationship with Nain Singh’s daughter.

A trial court in Mandla in 2023 convicted the accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Challenging the verdict, it was submitted that an eyewitness was planted in the case, and that no complete chain of circumstances was proven during the trial.

Having analysed the evidence in the appeal, the High Court opined that the prosecution’s star witness, Chain Singh, was planted by the police.

Chain Singh had initially deposed before a trial court that he had stayed at the house of Nain Singh one night, and had seen the two accused beat up a man (the deceased victim) who had allegedly been teasing Nain Singh's daughter.

However, during cross-examination, the High Court noted that Chain Singh had admitted that he had gone to Kerala in search of work and that he gathered information about the incident after he was brought back from Kerala to Madhya Pradesh by the police.

“Thus, it is evident Chain Singh (PW-6) is not a witness of last seen or an eye witness. He was planted by the Police for which we shall be ordering a separate enquiry against the I.O. to be conducted by the Senior Police Official for making false accusation and planting false witnesses. The prosecution did not re-examine this witness to extract any contradiction on the last statement that he came to know about the incident when Police brought him from Kerala. Thus, it is a gross failure on the part of the concerned Public Prosecutor who conducted the trial,” the High Court said.

The Court also found that the doctor, who had conducted the postmortem on September 25, 2021, had opined that the death had occurred 4-6 days earlier.

However, the Court also noted that the prosecution witnesses had claimed that the victim was in constant touch with the daughter of the accused between September 19-25. The Court questioned how a dead man could remain in touch with the accused's daughter.

All of these gaps in the prosecution's case pointed to the dishonest state of investigation in Madhya Pradesh, the High Court lamented.

“Science has yet not so developed to enable a deceased person to connect through mobile phone and talk to daughter of the accused person. This is another lacuna which reveals that how dishonest is the status of investigation in the State of Madhya Pradesh and all the prosecution witnesses including Police officials resorts to lies to just complete investigation and file charge sheet rather than carrying out honest, transparent and independent investigation,” the Court remarked.

The Court also found that no DNA test had been conducted for the identification of the decomposed body. It added that even the woman, with whom the victim was stated to be in a relationship, was not examined to establish the motive. 

It, therefore, set aside the conviction,

“Since the prosecution has failed to complete chain of circumstances and they have stooped down to implant witnesses which erodes the presumption of Police carrying out investigation in good faith, chain of circumstances is not complete and, therefore, impugned judgment of conviction dated 11.12.2023 passed by learned Ist Additional Sessions Judge, Mandla District Mandla, in S.T. No.37 of 2022 is set aside. Appellants be set free immediately if not required in any other offence,” the Court ordered.

Advocate Devendra Kumar Shuka represented the appellants.

Government Advocate Ajay Tamrakar represented the State of MP.

[Read Judgment]