Madras HC acquits three men of murder, citing a suppressed FIR origin and 'parrot-like' witnesses

The Madras High Court acquitted three men convicted of murder over a dispute that began with an argument over four kilograms of beef and escalated into a double stabbing in Coimbatore. The Sessions Court had convicted five of six accused under Sections 147, 148 and 302 read with 149 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Justices N. Sathish Kumar and K. Rajasekar found the prosecution's case unsafe on several counts: the genuine origin of the First Information Report had been suppressed, since the injured man had actually first been reported to the police through the hospital, contradicting the official FIR timeline; the eyewitnesses gave parrot-like, mutually contradictory versions of events; the police failed to collect CCTV footage or mobile-phone call records that were available; and there was unexplained delay both in recording witness statements and in sending material objects for forensic examination.

Applying the settled principle that an accused is entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt, and citing the Supreme Court's rulings in Sahadevan v. State of Tamil Nadu, Bijoy Singh v. State of Bihar and Md. Sajjad v. State of West Bengal, the Court acquitted all three appellants, and, unusually, extended the acquittal to a fourth convict who had not even filed an appeal, since the entire prosecution case had collapsed.