Supreme Court Judgments passed in October 2020

Criminal Law

In Amar Singh v. The State (NCT of Delhi), the Bench struck down the finding of conviction of the accused by stating that though a court may act on the testimony of a single eye-witness under Section 134 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872, but in case of doubts, corroboration can be insisted on as it is not the number of the witnesses which is a relevant consideration but the quality thereof. In the present case, the Court found the behaviour of the prime witnesses (brothers of the deceased) to be inherently improbable. [Key Words: ocular testimony, medical evidence] [Coram: Sanjay Kishan Kaul, J., Aniruddha Bose, J., Krishna Murari, J.]

In Bikramjit Singh v. The State of Punjab, the Bench agreed with the Petitioner when the “Special Court” had been set up as an exclusive court to try all offences under UAPA such as the scheduled offences relatable to the NIA Act, it was the Special Court alone which had the exclusive jurisdiction to extend the period of 90 days to 180 days under Section 43-D(2)(b) of the UAPA. The Bench came to this finding on the basis of the fact that the NIA 2008 had done away with the differentiation between courts trying offences punishable with imprisonment below 7 years and above 7 years as “as all scheduled offences i.e. all offences under the UAPA, whether investigated by the National Investigation Agency or by the investigating agencies of the State Government, are to be tried exclusively by Special Courts set up under that Act. In the absence of any designated Court by notification issued by either the Central Government or the State Government, the fall back is upon the Court of Sessions alone”.

The Bench further noted that in case an application for default bail is made on expiry of the period of 90 days (where application could be oral) before the charge sheet was filed, the right to default bail was activated. It was irrelevant if the criminal court either does not dispose of the application before the charge sheet is filed or disposes of the application wrongly. In this case, it was found that the right under Section 167(2) was activated since the ilaqa magistrate had extended custody under Section 167 when it never had the power to do so. [Key Words: Sections 2(o), 2(p), 2(k), 2(l), 2(m), 2(1)(d), 43-D(2) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, Sections 6, 26(b), 167, Part II of First Schedule of the CrPC, Sections 2(g), 2(h), 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 22, of the National Investigation Agency Act 2008, “if already not availed of”, default bail, “court”, special court, scheduled offence, Punjab Government Notification dated 10.06.2014, personal liberty, indefeasible right to bail] [Coram: RF Nariman, J., Navin Sinha, J., KM Joseph, J.]