Tripura High Court: A Bench of S. Talapatra and Arindam Lodh, JJ. allowed an appeal filed against the Judgment of the trial court whereby the appellant was convicted for an offence of murder punishable under Section 302 IPC.
The appellant was alleged to have committed the murder of his wife. The trial court had observed that the appellant was found on the previous day of the incident as well as on a fateful evening in his rented house by the witnesses, and he alone committed his wife’s murder and none else. The plea of alibi taken as defence by the appellant was not accepted.
Explaining the law regarding the plea of alibi and burden of proof thereof, the High Court stated:
“Latin word ‘alibi’ means ‘elsewhere’ and that word is used for convenience when an accused takes recourse to a defence line that when the occurrence took place he was so far away from the place of occurrence that it is extremely improbable that he would have participated in the crime. It is basic law that in a criminal case, in which the accused is alleged to have inflicted physical injury to another person, the burden is on the prosecution to prove that the accused was present at the scene and has participated in the crime. The burden would not be lessened by the mere fact that the accused has adopted the defence of alibi. The plea of the accused in such cases need be considered only when the burden has been discharged by the prosecution satisfactorily.”
Explaining further:
“When the presence of the accused at the scene of occurrence is established satisfactorily by the prosecution through reliable evidence, normally the court would be slow to believe any counter-narrative to the effect that he was elsewhere when the occurrence happened. But if the evidence adduced by the accused is of such a quality and of such a standard that the court may entertain some reasonable doubt regarding his presence at the scene when the occurrence took place, the accused would, no doubt, be entitled to the benefit of reasonable doubt. For that purpose, it would be a sound proposition that in such circumstances, the burden on the accused is rather heavy. It follows, therefore, that strict proof is required for establishing the plea of alibi.”
In the present case, the prosecution had failed to prove appellant’s presence at the scene of the crime. Thus, there was no occasion to consider whether his plea of alibi could be considered or not. Accordingly, the impugned order was set aside and the appellant was set at liberty on the benefit of doubt. [Suman Nama v. State of Tripura, Crl. A. (J) No. 33 of 2015, decided on 03-05-2019]
