The conviction unravelled on a single, foundational flaw: the prosecution did not disclose how the case truly began. An earlier written complaint, which ought in law to have been treated as the First Information Report, was withheld, and a later police statement was placed on record as the FIR instead. That suppression of the genesis of the case, the Patna High Court held, attracted an adverse inference and the statutory bar on using a delayed statement, and, taken with material contradictions between the two surviving eye-witnesses on who did what, cast a thick cloud of suspicion over the whole prosecution. Nearly four decades after the incident, the five appellants were acquitted.
Patna: The Patna High Court has set aside the conviction and life sentences of five men found guilty of a 1989 murder and dacoity, acquitting them on the ground that the prosecution had suppressed the genesis of the case by withholding the earliest written complaint that should have been treated as the First Information Report, and that the resulting infirmity, compounded by discrepancies in the eye-witness evidence, entitled the appellants to the benefit of the doubt [Bhikhari Sahani and Others v. State of Bihar].
A Division Bench of Justice Bibek Chaudhuri and Justice Rana Vikram Singh, in a judgment authored by Justice Chaudhuri, allowed the criminal appeal and directed the appellants’ release.
The case
The prosecution arose from an incident of February 1989 in a village in Muzaffarpur district, in which an armed group was alleged to have raided a house amid a land dispute, killing two sisters of the informant and decamping with valuables. A case was registered at Ahiyapur police station under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act. Of the fifteen accused who faced trial, the trial court acquitted ten and convicted five, sentencing them to rigorous imprisonment for life for the offence of murder read with Section 149 IPC, along with concurrent terms for the allied offences. The five convicts appealed.
The suppressed genesis of the case
The decisive infirmity, in the Court’s analysis, lay in how the case had been set in motion. The material indicated that the informant had submitted an earlier written complaint, which, in law, ought to have been treated as the First Information Report; instead, a later statement recorded by the police, the fard beyan, was placed on record as the FIR. A statement recorded after the earliest information, the Court held, could not be treated as the FIR and would be hit by Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which bars the use of statements made to the police in the course of investigation.
By concealing the initial version from the Court, the Court held, the prosecution had suppressed the very genesis of the case, and an adverse inference deserved to be drawn against it on that count. It drew support from the Supreme Court’s decision in Allarakha Habib Memon v. State of Gujarat. The suppression of the true origin of the prosecution, the Court held, cast a thick cloud of suspicion over the case:
“…the prosecution has failed to prove the genesis of the case and written complaint submitted by Kameshwar Singh was placed as First Information Report and the same was suppressed by the prosecution, it casts thick cloud of suspicion on the prosecution case.”
Discrepancies in the eye-witness account
The Court also found the identification evidence wanting. The sole eye-witness to the assault inside the house was unable to name the assailants who had killed the two deceased, speaking only to the injury she herself had sustained. Comparing her evidence with that of the other principal witness, the Court found material discrepancies in the names of the miscreants each had given, so that the two accounts could not be said to corroborate one another. The presence of one of the appellants near the scene, and his role in the witness’s own injury, though spoken to, could not be raised to a conclusive finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, given that the foundational suppression left it unclear whether his involvement had been named in the true first version or introduced by exaggeration in the later statement.
On the whole of the evidence, the Court held that the prosecution had not brought guilt home beyond reasonable doubt. It set aside the judgment of conviction and the order of sentence, allowed the appeal on contest, and directed that the appellants be released from the correctional home at once if not required in any other case.
Why it matters
The judgment turns on a principle that goes to the integrity of a criminal prosecution: the earliest information setting the criminal law in motion is the FIR, and it cannot be displaced by a later police statement chosen for its greater completeness. The FIR is valued precisely because it is the first, relatively unconsidered version, and Section 162 CrPC keeps subsequent statements to the police out of substantive use for that reason. When the prosecution withholds the genuine first complaint and substitutes a later statement, it does not merely commit a technical lapse; it deprives the defence and the court of the original account against which the trial version can be tested, which is why courts treat such suppression as a matter going to the root of the case.
The decision illustrates how that foundational flaw infects the rest of the evidence. Once the true genesis is suppressed, the court cannot be sure whether a particular accused’s name appeared in the original version or was added later, so even otherwise plausible identification evidence, here, an injured witness’s account of her own assailant, cannot safely be raised to proof beyond reasonable doubt. Combined with unreconciled discrepancies between the two eye-witnesses on who was present and who did what, the prosecution’s case could not cross the threshold the criminal standard demands.
The long passage of time is the sombre backdrop. An incident of 1989, a trial concluding in conviction only in 2019, and an appellate acquittal in 2026 together span nearly four decades, during which the appellants stood accused and, latterly, imprisoned for a grave offence of which the State ultimately could not prove them guilty. The outcome vindicates the rule that a conviction must rest on a prosecution that discloses its true origins and proves its case to the criminal standard; where it does not, the benefit of the doubt belongs to the accused, however old and however serious the case.
Case Title: Bhikhari Sahani and Others v. State of Bihar [Criminal Appeal (DB) No. 1297 of 2019]
Bench: Justice Bibek Chaudhuri and Justice Rana Vikram Singh, High Court of Judicature at Patna
Date of Judgment: September 19, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Sanjeev Kumar, Adarsh Ranjan and Rakesh Kumar Ranjan, and Advocate Ravi Bhardwaj, for the appellants. Additional Public Prosecutor Shashi Bala Verma for the State.
Status: Appeal allowed. Conviction and life sentences set aside; five appellants acquitted and directed to be released.