SANJAY KUMAR SHARMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Overzealous investigation is as fatal to prosecution as are the lethargic and the tardy. Framing a case on public perceptions and personal predilections ends up in a mess, often putting to peril an innocent and always letting free the perpetrator. Here, we have a case of gruesome death of a couple when their house was gutted in a fire, with the son and daughter-in-law accused of murder. The entire case is founded on motive; the ill-will the son harbored against the father for not having given him his due share in the ancestral property. The entire village was against the son and the mishap ended in an investigation where truth was sacrificed at the altar of perceived vengeance, ably assisted by the Investigating Officer's selective but careless pursuits, derailing the entire prosecution.

(3.) On the early hours of 23/11/2016, a shanty in which a lawyer and his wife were residing was gutted in a fire, killing the old man immediately and his wife after two days in a hospital at Patna. It was alleged that the younger son and daughter-in-law of the couple, due to previous enmity arising from land disputes, torched the hut with the intention to murder the parents. In defense, as is permissible, inconsistent stances were taken; of the neighbour, who was managing the properties of the deceased, and the elder son having colluded to murder the couple and an accidental fire, by reason of the cooking gas cylinder bursting. The Trial Court convicted the accused, while the High Court acquitted him. We are faced with the divergent findings of the Trial Court and the High Court; that of the High Court by its order of acquittal having fortified the presumption of innocence available to the accused.