If the accused simply avoids being found for a long time, it doesn’t automatically mean they are guilty: Supreme Court
Case: SEKARAN V. THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU
Coram: Justice BR Gavai, Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Aravind Kumar
Case No.: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 2294 OF 2010
Court Observation: “…abscondence by a person against whom an FIR has been lodged and who is under expectation of being apprehended is not very unnatural. Mere absconding by the appellant after alleged commission of crime and remaining untraceable for such a long time itself cannot establish his guilt or his guilty conscience. Abscondence, in certain cases, could constitute a relevant piece of evidence, but its evidentiary value depends upon the surrounding circumstances. This sole circumstance, therefore, does not enure to the benefit of the prosecution”.
“There seems to be no legal bar in convicting an accused resting on part of the evidence, which is primarily found to be credible and acceptable; however, where the evidence is so inseparable that any attempt to separate them would destroy the substratum on which the prosecution version is founded, then this Court would be within its legal limits to discard the evidence in its entirety”
“In cases of the present nature, where material witnesses are withheld by the prosecution and it is the positive case set up by the defence that he has been falsely implicated for murder though death of the victim could be for reasons attributable to an accidental fall from a tree and such a case in defence finds some amount of corroboration from the other evidence on record, coupled with the fact that the appellate court has imposed a lesser sentence upon reversal of the finding of murder returned by the trial court, this Court as the court of last resort has a duty to separate the grain from the chaff and after sieving the untruth or unacceptable portion of the evidence, to also examine whether the residue is sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused.”
“It is trite that merely because there is some delay in lodging an FIR, the same by itself and without anything more ought not to weigh in the mind of the courts in all cases as fatal for the prosecution. A realistic and pragmatic approach has to be adopted, keeping in mind the peculiarities of each particular case, to assess whether the unexplained delay in lodging the FIR is an afterthought to give a coloured version of the incident, which is sufficient to corrode the credibility of the prosecution version. In cases where delay occurs, it has to be tested on the anvil of other attending circumstances. If on an overall consideration of all relevant circumstances it appears to the court that the delay in lodging the FIR has been explained, mere delay cannot be sufficient to disbelieve the prosecution case; however, if the delay is not satisfactorily explained and it appears to the court that cause for the delay had been necessitated to frame anyone as an accused, there is no reason as to why the delay should not be considered as fatal forming part of several factors to vitiate the conviction”
“Viewed in the light of the delay in lodging of the FIR and on threadbare consideration of the other evidence on record, the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate death of Palas do not clearly and unequivocally point to the involvement of the appellant and his false implication cannot be wholly ruled out”
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If the accused simply avoids being found for a long time, If the accused simply avoids being found for a long time, it doesn’t automatically mean they are guilty
