Appellate Court Must Address Trial Court's Reasons Before Reversing Acquittal: Supreme Court Restores NDPS Acquittal

A police patrol found the appellants sitting by a bonfire near a bridge on 22.12.2010, with a bag lying near them; they tried to run away, were caught, and the bag was found to contain about 1.5 kg of charas (paras 2-3). The Trial Court acquitted them on 31.08.2012, finding that the forensic report did not show the resin was of the cannabis plant, that no option was given to be searched before a Magistrate or Gazetted Officer, and that the prosecution case could not be believed (para 4). On the State's appeal, the High Court convicted them and imposed ten years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,00,000 (paras 1, 5).

The Court restated three settled rules: an appellate court proposing to upturn an acquittal must deal with the reasons that weighed with the Trial Court; an acquittal reinforces the normal presumption of innocence; and where two views are possible, the appellate court must be extremely slow to interfere (para 7). The High Court's judgment did not consider the matter from that perspective and "proceeded to consider the evidence on record straightaway without considering the reasons that had weighed with the Trial Court" (para 8). The approach laid down in Ramesh Babulal Doshi requires the appellate court first to ask whether the trial court's findings are palpably wrong, manifestly erroneous or demonstrably unsustainable (para 8). Having checked the original record, the Court found that the arrest memos did not show that any option was given to the accused before their personal search; although that search recovered nothing, the lack of an option was one of the reasons for which the Trial Court disbelieved the prosecution (para 9). The Trial Court's assessment of the facts was "absolutely correct" (para 10).