The Patna High Court has acquitted five men convicted of a 1989 murder and dacoity, holding that the prosecution suppressed the genesis of the case by withholding an earlier written complaint that ought to have been treated as the FIR, and instead placing on record a later statement, which attracted an adverse inference and the bar under Section 162 CrPC. Coupled with material discrepancies between the two eye-witnesses, this cast a thick cloud of suspicion on the prosecution case.
