The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of twenty accused persons in a murder case, affirming the judgment of the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench, after finding that the prosecution’s case rested on eyewitness accounts that were strikingly identical in nature, which the Court deemed improbable given the circumstances of the incident.
The case, titled Nirmala Bai Devidas Chavhan v. State of Maharashtra and Others (With Connected Case), arose from a murder where multiple individuals were alleged to have witnessed the occurrence. The trial court and the First Appellate Court had acquitted the accused, but the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench, in a second appeal, had reversed the acquittal and convicted the twenty persons based on the eyewitness testimonies.
A bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Augustine George Masih examined the testimonies and observed that in a normal course, when a single incident involving a large number of persons is witnessed by several individuals who are differently positioned—some of whom may themselves be under assault—it is expected and natural that their accounts would reflect individual perception. Differences in detail, the Court noted, are the natural product of the circumstances of observation and lend assurance to the veracity of the testimony rather than detracting from it.
The Court emphasized that it is a settled principle that an identical and stereotyped version of events bears the imprint of tutoring rather than of truthful recollection. The lack of variation in the eyewitness accounts, despite the witnesses being positioned differently and the incident involving a chaotic scene with multiple persons, undermined the prosecution’s case and warranted acquittal.
The Court further noted that the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench had erred in interfering with the concurrent findings of the trial court and the First Appellate Court, which had both found the case suspicious due to the uniform nature of the testimonies. By upholding the acquittal, the Supreme Court reiterated that identical testimonies, especially in chaotic or multi-witness scenarios, raise a reasonable doubt about their authenticity and cannot form the basis for conviction.
The judgment reinforces the judicial caution required in relying on eyewitness evidence, particularly when such evidence lacks the expected inconsistencies that arise from genuine, independent perception. The Court’s observation serves as a reminder that uniformity in testimony, far from indicating truth, may often signal coordination or tutoring, especially in cases involving multiple witnesses to a single incident.
The acquittal of the twenty accused stands restored, and the State’s appeal was dismissed. The Court’s reasoning underscores the importance of scrutinizing eyewitness accounts for internal consistency and natural variation, particularly in cases where the factual matrix involves a large number of participants and observers.