'Delay in recording witnesses' version, if explained, not to aid accused,' Supreme Court upholds conviction in murder case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that a delay in recording witness statements, more so when it is explained, will not aid an accused, though no hard-and-fast principle in this regard ought to be or can be laid down.

The top court explained the delay, if any, in recording statements will have to be examined by the court concerned in conjunction with the peculiar facts of the case before it.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ahsanuddin Amanullah dismissed an appeal filed by Feroz Khan Akbarkhan against the Bombay High Court's judgment upholding his conviction and award of life term for stabbing Sukhdeo Mahadeorao Dhurve to death on April 19, 2005.

The incident was said to be a fallout of a quarrel, a day before, between the accused and the deceased on account of the alleged illicit relations between the informant, the deceased’s sister, and one Rashid Kazi of that village.

The court found that the presence of the appellant at the site of the incident and his having stabbed the deceased on the stomach repeatedly has been the consistent stand of the eyewitnesses. The courts below have also concurrently found so. The accused-appellant has not been able to controvert the evidence on record, it said.

Arguing on appeal, his counsel raised the issue of the delay of two-three days in recording the statements of the eye-witnesses under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The bench, however, said this has been thoroughly explained by the witnesses, including the investigating officer, as there were riots in the area after the incident. The investigating officer was involved in maintaining law and order in the affected area.

In the attendant facts and circumstances, the course of action adopted by the police cannot be termed unjustified and no adverse inference can be drawn on this count, the court said.

The appellant's counsel also contended the informant woman was not examined as a prosecution witness in the case.

The bench, however, pointed out that she was examined as a defence witness.

"The important factor is that she and her testimony were available to the trial court in its pursuit of truth. Thus, it does not matter as to whether she was produced as a witness from the side of the prosecution or from the defence," the bench said.

The prosecution, or the other accused, had the occasion and the opportunity to cross-examine her. Her testimony has been consistent with the version in the FIR and in sync with the other eye-witnesses, the court pointed out.

The counsel also said the incident was not pre-planned and occurred on the spot as all the eye witnesses have admitted that initially there was hot talk, followed by blows and a scuffle, whereafter the stabbings, allegedly by the appellant, happened.

The court, however, said such a plea might have had some relevance, provided the appellant was not armed with a knife. It is not the case put up by either the prosecution or the defence that the appellant picked up a knife from or around the spot and then inflicted stabs.

"Every eye witness has maintained that the appellant inflicted the knife stabs on the deceased which could only have been possible if the knife was already with him, which clearly indicates that he had come with prior intention to cause bodily injury by knife which obviously is a weapon sufficient to cause death. In other words, the intention to kill was very much present from the beginning and is not covered by any exception to Section 300 of the IPC," the bench said in its judgment on March 24, 2025.

Upholding his conviction and sentence, the court asked the Maharashtra government to consider his plea for premature release and pass a reasoned order expeditiously and latest within three months, as he claimed to have served more than 14 years of the jail term.