New Delhi: In a case involving six people who were convicted on the testimony of two constables, the Supreme Court acquitted three of them last week on the grounds that it had acquitted the other three five years ago after entirely rejecting the constables’ testimony.“When there is similar or identical evidence of eyewitnesses against two accused by ascribing them the same or similar role, the Court cannot convict one accused and acquit the other,” a two-judge bench comprising Justices Abhay Oka and Sanjay Karol said on September 13.The six people were convicted by a Gujarat trial court in March 2006 of committing offences including dacoity and murder during an incident of mob violence in Ahmedabad in 2003.At least some of them were sentenced to life in prison, but the Gujarat high court reduced this to 10 years in 2016, the order said.In that same year, three of the six convicts had appealed against their sentence in the Supreme Court. Two years later, the court acquitted them, and entirely rejected the testimony of the two constables on which their sentence was solely based.A fourth convict, who his counsel said was also sentenced solely on the constables’ testimony, filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court in 2018, but was summarily dismissed.Last week, the bench said that he must also be acquitted, as his case stood on the same footing as that of the three who were acquitted in 2018.“The accused … must get the benefit of parity … If we fail to grant relief to [him], the rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution of India will be violated. It will amount to doing manifest injustice,” it said.Article 21 relates to the protection of life and liberty.“Therefore, we will have to recall the order passed in the special leave petition filed by [the accused]”, its order continued to say.That leaves two of the six convicts who were acquitted by the top court between 2018 and last week. These two did not appeal against their sentence, but the court acquitted them anyway, as they were accused of playing similar roles based on identical evidence.“We have no manner of doubt that the benefit which is granted to [the accused who were acquitted in 2018] deserves to be extended to [the present two accused],” the bench said.“In this case, the suo motu exercise of powers under Article 136 is warranted as it is a question of the liberty of the said two accused guaranteed by Article 21 of the constitution.”Justices Oka and Karol had earlier pointed out that this suo motu power was only to be exercised in the “rarest of the rare cases”.What case was the bench hearing in the first place?The bench made these decisions while hearing an appeal by a seventh accused named Javed Shaukat Ali Qureshi, who was convicted along with the previous six, but whose conviction was based on a different testimony.A woman named Gitaben Bhailal said Qureshi was part of the mob in 2003 and had snatched her necklace during the violence.However, the bench noted that only Bhailal had identified Qureshi, that she did not know him beforehand, that he was not produced in a police identification parade, and that Bhailal had identified him in the trial court around two years after his alleged crime.“Therefore, it is very difficult to accept that in such a large mob gathered around [Bhailal] … the witness could remember the face of only one accused and recognise him after a lapse of about two years from the date of the incident,” the bench said last week.It added that there was neither any direct nor circumstantial evidence to corroborate Bhailal’s accusation against Qureshi.“Such a corroboration is completely absent in this case. Therefore, the conviction of the appellant cannot be sustained,” it said.A total of 13 people were prosecuted in this case. Seven were convicted and sentenced. Four were acquitted by the Supreme Court on September 13 this year, and three were acquitted in 2018.
