The Supreme Court has held that a criminal conviction is unsustainable where the prosecution suppresses the actual FIR, withholds the Investigating Officer from the witness box, and relies on embellished later statements that materially contradict the earliest version of the incident. The Court ruled that once the first Fardbeyan—containing no names of the assailants—was recorded and signed by the informant, the prosecution was not entitled to substitute it with a subsequent, improved report naming the accused.
The Bench observed that non-examination of the Investigating Officer, who recorded both the Fardbeyan and the later written report, deprived the defence of the opportunity to establish manipulation in the investigation and “undermined the very foundation of the prosecution case.” The Court noted that the prosecution’s failure to produce the IO, despite him being the author of crucial documents, warranted an adverse inference.
The Court further held that the extremely perfunctory manner in which the trial court recorded the accused persons’ statements under Section 313 CrPC—putting only three generic questions without confronting them with any incriminating material—constituted a fatal irregularity causing grave prejudice. Given the passage of more than 35 years since the incident, the defect could not be cured by remand.
The Bench rejected the prosecution’s theory of an oral dying declaration, observing that the deceased suffered severe cranial fractures and subdural bleeding which made it “highly improbable” that he could have spoken. The Court found the testimonies of the deceased’s sisters unreliable, as their police statements were recorded after an unexplained delay of more than one and a half months.
Significantly, the defence witnesses—who were named by the informant himself as companions during the incident—testified that unknown persons, not the appellants, had assaulted the deceased. Their evidence, the Court held, could not be discarded merely because they were defence witnesses, and it created a reasonable doubt about the prosecution version.
Holding thus, the bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta set aside the judgments of the Trial Court and High Court, acquitted the accused, and directed their immediate release, noting that the prosecution case was marred by “improvements, contradictions, withholding of material witnesses, and a fundamentally defective trial.”
Case Title: Suresh Sahu & Anr. v. State of Bihar (now Jharkhand)
Citation: 2025 INSC 1382