In Brief
In this murder case arising from a street brawl in Kanker, Chhattisgarh (2009), the Supreme Court reviewed convictions of twelve accused persons. Four named accused (Dinesh Rawani, Brijesh Sonkar, Mani Yadav, Parmesh Thakur) had committed clear fatal acts: delivering a lethal gupti stab and patta blows to the head, resulting in death. Four other appellants (Sayyed Javed, Manoj Sevani, Manoj Yadav, Manohar Balmiki) were not named in the FIR and had no substantial specific acts attributed to them in eyewitness testimony. The Court acquitted these four for lack of proof of individual participation, converting the conviction of the four principal offenders from Section 302/149 IPC to Section 302/34 IPC (common intention rather than vicarious mob liability)."
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