The Supreme Court has partly allowed an appeal from Maharashtra over a night-time incident from 1993. It set aside a conviction under Section 394 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which covers causing hurt while committing robbery, and replaced it with Section 325 IPC, which deals with voluntarily causing grievous hurt. A Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar also reduced the seven-year jail term to the period the appellant had already spent in custody.
Background
The case began on 23 January 1993 at a farmhouse in Nashik district. The complainant said she was sleeping on a cot on the porch when four men arrived. She alleged that the appellant, Appa, sat beside her, held a knife to her neck, struck her face and took her gold mangalsutra and dorle, worth about ₹4,000.
An FIR was registered at Manmad City Police Station. Only two accused were traced. The Additional Sessions Judge, Malegaon, convicted Appa under Section 394 IPC and sentenced him to seven years of rigorous imprisonment with a ₹1,000 fine. The Bombay High Court upheld this on 16 January 2026, though it acquitted the co-accused, and Appa then moved the Supreme Court.
Appa argued that he was never properly identified. He pointed out that it was night, the attackers' faces were covered and no Test Identification Parade was held. The Bench did not agree. It noted that the FIR was lodged within about four hours, and that the complainant named him and described how she knew him. Her daughter and husband supported her account, and witnesses said the porch bulb was on during an incident lasting about an hour. In these circumstances, the Court said, the absence of an identification parade was not fatal.
The Court was not satisfied about robbery, however. No jewellery was recovered, nothing incriminating was seized from the appellant, and no receipt or document showed the identity or value of the ornaments. The beads found at the spot were never linked by evidence to the mangalsutra. The Bench held that the conviction under Section 394 could not be sustained.
It then relied on Section 222 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows conviction for a lesser offence when the proved facts support it. The Court declined to apply Section 326 IPC, since the knife was never recovered or linked to the hand injury, and the wound was shallow. It found, however, that the loss of the complainant's upper tooth was proved by witnesses and medical evidence, and that this falls within grievous hurt under Section 320 IPC.
On sentence, the Court noted that Appa spent 91 days in custody in 1993 and surrendered after its order of 27 February 2026, completing about ten months in all. He is about 63 to 64 years old. The Bench referred to its earlier ruling in Mathai v. State of Kerala:
"In the instant case considering the size of the stone which was used, as revealed by material on record, it cannot be said that a dangerous weapon was used. Therefore, the conviction is altered to Section 325 IPC. No hard and fast rule can be applied for assessing a proper sentence and a long passage of time cannot always be a determinative factor so far as sentence is concerned. It is not in dispute that a major portion of the sentence awarded has been suffered by the appellant. On the peculiar facts of the case we restrict it to the period already undergone."
The Court partly allowed the appeal, convicted Appa under Section 325 IPC and reduced his sentence to the period already undergone, while leaving the ₹1,000 fine untouched.
He is to be released forthwith unless required in any other case.
