The Supreme Court has refused to overturn the acquittal of twenty people accused in a murder case from Washim district in Maharashtra, saying the way witnesses described the attack did not match what the postmortem report actually showed. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih dismissed appeals filed by the victim's mother and the Maharashtra government, agreeing with the Bombay High Court's earlier decision to set the accused free.
Background Of The Case
The incident took place on Holi, March 18, 2014, at Naik Nagar in Manora, Washim district. According to the prosecution, a young man named Avinash had gone to ask that loud DJ music be turned down because his grandmother was unwell. This led to a quarrel, and old references to a 2013 Zilla Parishad election reportedly came up along with a threat.
Hours later, when Avinash returned home with his father, brother and cousin, a group of people allegedly dragged all four out of their car and beat them with iron pipes, rods and wooden planks. Avinash died on the spot; the other three were injured.
Twenty three people were chargesheeted. In 2018, the trial court convicted twenty of them for murder and other offences, sentencing them to life imprisonment. But in 2022, the Bombay High Court reversed this decision after re-examining the entire evidence and acquitted everyone, holding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The informant and the state government then approached the Supreme Court.
What The Court Observed
The bench went through the depositions of all six witnesses who claimed to have watched the assault, and found something troubling. Every single witness described, almost word for word, which accused person held which victim and who carried which weapon.
The bench observed that in a genuine account of a sudden, violent event witnessed by several people who were themselves under attack, some natural differences in detail are expected and their presence usually makes testimony more believable, not less. A version this uniform, covering the acts of twenty three people, pointed the other way.
The medical evidence added to the doubt. Four accused were said to have repeatedly hit the deceased's head with iron pipes for two to three minutes. Yet the postmortem showed just one laceration and a single fracture. The doctor who conducted the postmortem admitted in cross-examination that if four people struck the head continuously with iron pipes, the head could have been crushed depending on the force used. That simply wasn't the case here.
Similar contradictions turned up regarding an injured witness, whose claim that his eyeball had come out and teeth were dislodged did not match hospital records at all.
The court also noted that no independent witness from the neighbourhood was examined, despite forty to fifty people having gathered at the scene. Statements of two eyewitnesses were recorded only two days later without explanation. Injuries sustained by some of the accused themselves were never properly explained by the prosecution either.
The bench referred to its earlier ruling in Sanjay Kumar v. State of Bihar, noting that where detailed attribution of roles is not supported by medical evidence and independent witnesses don't back the prosecution, courts must be cautious before overturning an acquittal.
The Decision
The Supreme Court held that the High Court's acquittal was a reasonable view based on the record, not a perverse one, and that under Article 136 of the Constitution, it would not disturb such a finding merely because another view was possible.
Both sets of appeals filed by the informant and by the State of Maharashtra were dismissed, and the High Court's 2022 judgment acquitting all the accused was allowed to stand.
Case Details
Case Title: Nirmala Bai Devidas Chavhan v. State of Maharashtra & Others
Case Number: Criminal Appeal Nos. 502–507 of 2023 with Criminal Appeal Nos. 508–513 of 2023
Judge: Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Augustine George Masih
Decision Date: August 3, 2026
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