KESAR SINGH versus STATE OF PUNJAB

Citation: [1974] 3 S.C.R. 487 · Decided: 04-03-1974 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: M. HAMEEDULLAH BEG · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed
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Judgment (excerpt)

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KESARSINGH 
v. 
STATE OF PUNJAB 
March 4, 1974 
[M. H. BEG ANDY. V. CHANDRACHUD, JJ.J 
Criminal Practice. 
Conviction for murder-Sentence. 
487 
The appellant was charged with an offence under s. ~02, Indian Penal Code of 
murdering three persons. The trial court found that there was enough evidence to 
show that the appellant was one of murderers of one of the three men and sentenced 
him to life imprisonment. The High Court enhanced the sentence to one for death 
on the grounds: that, the motive was to avenge murder of the appellant's brother-
in-law committed some years prior to the occurrence so that there could be no 
immediate provocation; that, the three murders were committed in very cold-
blooded and brutal manner when the deceased were sleeping on their cots; that, two 
shots from a 12 bore gun had been fired at each of the three murdered men indicating 
the-determination to give no chance of survival to anyone; that, the time selected for 
the murder was such that no possible help could be rendered to,iprevent the death of 
any of the three deceased and no obstruction could be possible to carry out the 
design of committing these murders. 
Allowing the appeal in part, 
HELD : A criminal case is not tied down to a particular version as a clvii case 
is by the pleading of the parties. Moreover, there is so much of explicable inaccuracy 
often intermingled with imagination and exaggeration by witnesses who are coni· 
vinced of the guilt of a particular accused person that courts dealing with criminal 
cases cannot throw the whole case over-board simply because parts of it are im-
probable. To hold that a version is improbable is not to disbelieve entirely or to 
find it to be false.ltmaybethat factsaresometimesstrangerthanfiction. Prudence, 
however compels courts to test the version advanced in the light of what is reason· 
ably to be expected from the ordinary or usual norrns of human conduct and tl:e 
common course of natural events so as to infer what may have actually happened. 
In a criminal case conviction must rest on a proof so strong that the court musl te 
convinced that what is concluded must necessarily have happened and is not really 
explicable in any other way. [492A-DJ 
In the instant case although the appellant was .guilty of an offence punishable 
under s. 302 Tndian Penal Code, all the reasons given by the High Court for awarding 
the death sentence have not been substantiated. The evidence only disclosed thr.t 
it was more likely that the appellant wM one of the several murderers and that 
he caused the death of only one man with his gun, the other having b~-en killed by 
others who were not recognised, and, therefore, nothing, apart from the occurrence, 
proved about the character of the appellant. Nothing was disclosed about tile 
antecedents of the} 
app~!lant. Therefore, the real basis adopted by the High 
Court for enhancing the ~en!ence of the appellant would disappear. [493A·CJ 
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CRIMINAL APPELLATE JuRrsorcno~ : Criminal App~al No. 167 
of 1973. 
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated the 
24th April, 1973, of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh 
in Criminal Appeal No. 29 of 1972 and Criminal Revision No. 224 of 
1972. 
Nuruddin Ahmed and JP. Goburdhun, for the appellant. 
H.R. Khanna, 0. P. Sharma and R. N. Sachthey, for the respondent. 
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488 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
U9741 3-s.c.R. 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered.by -
BEG. J.-This is an appeal by special leave filed by Kesar Singh, 
ag~d 23 years, who was convicted under Section 302 Indian Penal 
Code on three counts and sentenced to life imprisonment by an Addi-
tional S~ssions' Judge of Patiala for having committed the murders 
of three persons, namely, Gurbachan Singh, 
Karnail 
Singh and 
Dewan Singh, one after another, during the night between 20th and 
21st June, 1970, in village Dhablan. On appeal against the convic-
tion and a revision application by the State against the lesser penalty 
for murder, the High Court of Punjab & Haryana dismissed the appeal 
of Kesar Singh, but it allowed the revision application of the State of 
Punjab enhancing the s!nten~ of Kesar Singh to one of·death. · 
The grounds given by the High Court for enhancing the sentence 
were: the motive was tL avenge the murder of the appellant's brother-
in-law Gurnam Singh committed about 7 or 8 years prior to the occur-
ren~ so that there could ba no immediate provocation; the three 
mur
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