Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has set aside the conviction of one Babai Sk @ Papai Sk in a 2015 firing incident near Lalbagh Sub-Divisional Hospital in Murshidabad, after finding that the bullet extracted from the deceased did not match the firearm recovered during investigation.
According to the prosecution case recorded in the judgment, the incident occurred on the night of January 7, 2015, at about 11.15 pm, when Subham Dey @ Ganju sustained a gunshot injury and later died. Sattya (Sattar) Sarkar was also injured. A written complaint was lodged by Nirmal Kumar Dey at about 1.15 am on January 8, 2015. The trial court had convicted the appellant in September 2017 under Sections 302, 307, 324 and 326 of the IPC and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
A Division Bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta, examined the ballistic report which stated that the bullet fragment removed from the victim’s skull did not match the barrel or calibre of the recovered firearm. The Bench noted that this inconsistency remained unexplained.
The court also recorded contradictions between the medical evidence and the statements of two witnesses described as injured eyewitnesses. One claimed he had been shot in the jaw, but medical examination revealed no bullet, pellet or radiological sign of such an injury. Another stated he had been hit with the butt of a pistol, while the medical report documented a sharp-cut wound, a type of injury not explained by the prosecution. The court found that these inconsistencies were not reconciled at trial.
On the investigation, the Bench noted that the prosecution had not established the precise place of occurrence. No bloodstains, cartridge cases, bullet marks or other physical materials were recovered from any identified spot. No local residents or “natural” witnesses were examined, and items mentioned in testimony — including a knife and motorcycles present at the scene — were not seized.
Holding that the evidence did not support the conviction, the High Court allowed the appeal and acquitted the appellant. He has been directed to be released forthwith, if not required in any other case, upon executing a bond before the trial court for a period of six months under Section 437A of the CrPC (corresponding to Section 481 of the BNSS, 2023).