In Brief
Mahendra Singh and three others were convicted by a trial court and the conviction upheld by the High Court for murder (Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC) and unlawful assembly (Section 148 IPC), based primarily on the eye-witness testimony of Amol Singh, the brother of the deceased. The Supreme Court found that Amol Singh was wholly unreliable because evidence from the accused's own witnesses proved he could not have witnessed the incident—he had learned of the death from others at the scene. The Court held that conviction cannot rest on wholly unreliable witness testimony, and medical evidence alone cannot substitute for credible eye-witness proof of guilt. The Court also emphasized that establishing motive does not sustain conviction. The appeals were allowed and all accused were acquitted and set at liberty."
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