Murder-accused Acquitted by Supreme Court

Murder-accused Acquitted by Supreme Court

In recent decision, Surendra Koli v. State of UP [2025] GCtR 1678 (SC), the murder-accused has been acquitted. It was held that Criminal law does not permit conviction on conjecture or on a hunch. Suspicion, however grave, cannot replace proof beyond reasonable doubt. Courts cannot prefer expediency over legality. When investigations are timely, professional and constitutionally compliant, even the most difficult mysteries can be solved and many crimes can be prevented by early intervention. Crucial scientific opportunities were lost when post-mortem material and other forensic outputs were not promptly and properly brought on record. The investigation did not adequately examine obvious witnesses from the household and neighbourhood and did not pursue material leads, including the organ-trade angle flagged by a governmental committee. Each lapse weakened the provenance and reliability of the evidence and narrowed the path to the truth.

The curative jurisdiction of Court exists to prevent abuse of process and to cure a gross miscarriage of justice.

This power flows from the inherent authority of Supreme Court to do complete justice and to protect the integrity of its judgments. However, the constitutional source of this power is coherent and limited. Article 129 of the Constitution of India declares Supreme Court to be a court of record with inherent powers to preserve the purity of its process. Article 142 of the Constitution empowers Supreme Court to make such orders as are necessary for doing complete justice.

Article 145 of the Constitution of India authorises the framing of rules. Order XLVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, titled “Curative Petition” prescribes the filing requirements, the certification by a Senior Advocate, and the preliminary circulation to a bench.

These provisions together sustain a narrow jurisdiction that may be invoked only after review has failed to correct a grave defect.

A curative petition is not a second review. Finality remains the rule and intervention is reserved only for very strong reasons that strike at the legitimacy of the adjudicatory process. The court has stated that only certain foundational circumstances demand relief as a matter of justice. One is a violation of natural justice where a person is adversely affected without being heard or without proper notice. Another is a case where a Judge failed to disclose a connection with the subject matter or with a party which gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. The instances are illustrative and not exhaustive.

The controlling test is whether the earlier decision produces a result that offends the conscience of Court because of a fundamental defect in process or because of a grave miscarriage of justice. Such defects may appear where outcomes are irreconcilably inconsistent on the same substratum of facts and evidence or where material circumstances bearing on fairness and reliability were overlooked or where the guarantees of equality and due process under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution stand compromised.

The question is whether intervention is necessary to vindicate the rule of law and to restore confidence in the administration of justice. The object is to cure a manifest miscarriage of justice where inconsistent results persist on the same foundation and undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.

The Investigating Officer’s proximity to the recording process, including his presence at the outset and his ready access, thereafter, compromised the environment of voluntariness. The text of the statement itself repeatedly adverted to tutoring and to prior coercion. These features attracted the bar under Section 24 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and rendered the confession inadmissible as a matter of law. There is no principled basis on which the same statement can be treated as voluntary and reliable in this case when it has been judicially discredited in all others. The narrative in the later-prepared seizure memorandum conflicted with the remand papers, which recorded a joint disclosure by both accused. The evidence also showed that the police and members of the public already knew that bones and articles lay in the open strip and that excavation had begun before the petitioner arrived. Once the disclosure is not contemporaneously proved, once prior knowledge is established, and once contradictions infect the record, Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act ceases to operate. The legal conclusion cannot change from case to case when the premise is identical. Extensive searches of D-5 by expert teams did not yield human bloodstains, remains, or transfer patterns consistent with multiple homicides and dismemberment inside the house. The DNA work undertaken by the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad linked certain remains to families of missing persons. That science aided only identification. It did not prove authorship of homicide by the accused within D-5. Knives and an axe were exhibited without proof of blood, tissue, or hair consistent with use in the alleged crimes.

The failure to secure prompt and independent medical documentation during the long spell of police custody, the perfunctory legal-aid arrangement at the moment of confession, the presence and influence of the Investigating Officer during the Section 164 procedure, the contradictions in remand and recovery papers, and the neglect of material avenues of inquiry, including the organ-trade angle flagged by a governmental committee, cumulatively undermine confidence in the prosecution’s case theory.

Article 21 of the Constitution insists on a fair, just and reasonable procedure. That insistence is at its acutest where capital punishment is imposed.

To allow a conviction to stand on evidentiary basis that Supreme Court has since rejected as involuntary or inadmissible in the very same fact matrix offends Article 21 of the Constitution. It also violates Article 14 of the Constitution, since like cases must be treated alike. Arbitrary disparity in outcomes on an identical record is inimical to equality before the law. The curative jurisdiction exists to prevent precisely such anomalies from hardening into precedent.

The confession that anchored the conviction is legally tainted on grounds already accepted by Supreme Court in the companion matters.