In Brief
Seventeen men were acquitted by a trial court of murder charges in a 1990 village brawl that resulted in one death. The High Court reversed the acquittal and convicted all seventeen under Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, reinstating the acquittal. The Court held that the trial court's reasoning was sound: identification of seventeen persons was implausible in dark winter evening conditions, the sole independent witness turned hostile, other independent witnesses were unexamined, and injuries on both sides suggested a mutual scuffle rather than premeditation. The High Court erred by merely substituting its view for the trial court's without establishing the acquittal was perverse. A trial court's acquittal may only be reversed if wholly unreasonable or perverse, not on mere disagreement."
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