Supreme Court slams Patna High Court for confirming death penalty to rape and murder accused despite contradictions in witness statements

The Supreme Court on Monday took strong exception to the conduct of a Bihar trial court, the police, the public prosecutor, and the Patna High Court in a case concerning a death-row prisoner convicted for the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl. [Munna Pandey vs State of Bihar].A bench of Justices BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Prashant Kumar Mishra were left shocked and aghast with the proceedings in the courts below including the High Court which proceeded on the footing that the appellant was guilty."All throughout, the High Court proceeded on the footing that it was the appellant convict who came to the house of the victim in the morning of 31.05.2015 and lured her to come to his house to watch TV. The High Court took the view that since the dead body of the victim was recovered from the room owned by the appellant and he was seen by the PW 3 Priya Kumari locking the door attached to his house, it could be none other than the appellant who could be said to have committed the crime. The High Court completely forgot that there was a co-accused also namely Pritam Tiwari in the picture," the Court said..The manner in which the case was handled also prompted the bench to dwell on what defined and constituted a fair trial, and how truth was 'the soul of justice.'"The sole idea of criminal justice system is to see that justice is done. Justice will be said to be done when no innocent person is punished and the guilty person is not allowed to go scot-free. The fair trial is possible only when the court takes active interest and elicit all relevant information and material necessary so as to find out the truth for achieving the ultimate goal of dispensing jusstice with all fairness and impartiality to both the parties," the Supreme Court emphasised..The observations came while disposing of an appeal against a 2018 Patna High Court order that had upheld the conviction and death sentence of the accused. The High Court had confirmed a verdict by a Bhagalpur Sessions Court, which led to the appeal before the Supreme Court.The Supreme Court, in turn, found several shortcomings in the decision to convict the accused. .This included several discrepancies between the witnesses' accounts of events and the version of the police with regard to the role of the appellant and the co-accused Pritam Tiwari."The case of all the witnesses before the police was that it was Pritam Tiwari who had come to the house of the victim on the fateful day and date and had taken the victim along with him to his house to watch TV. All the statements further reveal that it was Pritam Tiwari who was found locking the door when the witnesses enquired with Pritam Tiwari about the whereabouts of the victim," the Court stated.But neither the counsel for the accused nor the public prosecutor, the trial court judge or the High Court looked into this aspect to try to reach the truth, the bench lamented."It was the duty of the defence counsel to confront the witnesses with their police statements ... We are sorry to say that the learned defence counsel had no idea how to contradict a witness with his or her police statements in accordance with Section 145 of the Evidence Act, 1872 (for short, ‘Evidence Act’)," the Supreme Court observed. .The bench explained that the public prosecutor ought to have brought to the notice of the witnesses the variances in their statements and confronted them with the same. .The top court made it clear that the trial judge was also at fault for having remained a mute spectator. "It was the duty of the presiding officer to put relevant questions to these witnesses in exercise of his powers under Section 165 of the Evidence Act ... Being a case of rape and murder and as the evidence was not free from doubt, the Trial Judge ought to have acquainted himself, in the interest of justice, with the important material and also with what the only important witnesses of the prosecution had said during the police investigation," the bench said..The bench pointed out that no forensic laboratory report was collected despite evidence samples having been sent. Further, despite the case being based on circumstantial evidence, the accused was not medically examined."Who are these senior officers of PW 5 (investigating officer) and why they instructed the PW 5 not to procure the FSL report should have been a subject matter of inquiry by both, the State as well as the trial court. The aforesaid lapse is just a tip of the iceberg. We are at pains to state that it is a very serious flaw on the part of the investigating officer and that too in such a serious matter," the Court said. .The top court also explained at length how a trial judge can be an active participant in pursuit of ensuring that the truth emerges in a case.It underscored that courts can suo motu look into documents or put questions to witnesses. Pertinently, High Court can direct further inquiry under Section 367 of the Criminal Procedure Code which it did not, the Supreme Court added."We regret to state that the High Court completely overlooked the aforesaid aspects as discussed above. What was expected of the High Court to do in such circumstances? If the High Court would have taken little pains to look into the record, then immediately it could have taken recourse to Section 367 of the CrPC," the apex court said..The Court proceeded to allow the accused man's appeal and ordered the Patna High Court to hear the matter afresh. The top court also noted that the accused had been behind bars for nine years, most of it being on death row, and hence asked the High Court to dispose of the appeal expeditiously.Pertinently, the High Court was directed to provide a seasoned criminal lawyer to represent the accused..Further, the Supreme Court registry was directed to send a copy of this ruling to all High Courts, which in turn have to forward it to their respective district courts..Senior Advocate Aditya Sondhi appeared for the accused, one Munna Pandey. Advocate Samir Ali Khan represented the Bihar government..Notably, the top court had last month in a similar manner criticised State agencies and courts in Bihar for their handling of the murder case in which RJD leader Prabhunath Singh was an accused..[Read Judgment]