In Brief
A labourer was convicted of murdering a colleague (Mahankal Jaiswal) by striking him with a hammer during a quarrel over money. Two eye-witnesses (a temple priest and another labourer) testified to seeing the assault under a railway bridge in Mumbai at night. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, finding the eye-witness testimony credible, coherent with medical evidence of head injuries, and bearing a ring of truth. The Court identified procedural defects in how the discovery of the weapon (hammer) was handled under Section 27 of the Evidence Act but held these did not undermine the conviction. While the accused's conduct in pointing out the concealed weapon was relevant, the Court clarified that conduct alone cannot form the basis of conviction—conviction rests on the reliable ocular evidence.
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