New Delhi, Mar 15 (PTI) A man, who was earlier convicted and sentenced to a life term in a nearly 46-year-old murder case in West Bengal, was on Tuesday acquitted by the Supreme Court.

The apex court set aside the December 2008 judgement of the Calcutta High Court which had dismissed the appeal filed by the man against the trial court order convicting him in the case.

Also Read | Jammu and Kashmir: Former CM Farooq Abdullah Calls for Independent Judicial Probe Into Kashmiri Pandit Exodus.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay S Oka said the appellant was implicated in the case only with the aid of section 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) but the prosecution has failed to prove the ingredients of this section in the matter.

“As consistently held by this court, common intention contemplated by section 34 of IPC pre­-supposes prior concert. It requires the meeting of minds. It requires a pre-­arranged plan before a man can be vicariously convicted for the criminal act of another. The criminal act must have been done in furtherance of the common intention of all the accused,” the bench said in its judgement.

Also Read | Bank Scam Case: Mumbai Police Files FIR Against BJP Leader Pravin Darekar in Upper House.

The top court said in this case, the non-­examination of two crucial eye-witnesses makes the prosecution case about the existence of a prior concert and pre-­arranged plan “extremely doubtful”.

“Hence, the prosecution has failed to prove ingredients of section 34 of IPC in this case. The appellant has been implicated only with the aid of section 34. Therefore, the appeal must succeed,” it said.

The bench set aside the judgements of the high court as well as the sessions court and acquitted the appellant.

It noted that the sessions court has convicted appellant Gadadhar Chandra for the offences punishable under section 302 (murder) read with section 34 of the IPC and had sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life.

The top court noted that the incident is of August 2, 1976, when a headmaster of a high school and the victim, who was an assistant teacher in the school, was returning home in the evening.

According to the prosecution, when both of them came near the railway gate, they noticed that the appellant and a juvenile were sitting along with two others.

It had claimed that the appellant and the juvenile came running from behind and caught hold of the victim's bicycle and there was a scuffle between the juvenile and the victim.

The prosecution had said that in the scuffle, the juvenile had stabbed the victim.

The top court observed that if according to the prosecution case, there was a meeting of minds and prior concert between the appellant and the juvenile when they were sitting with two others, the prosecution ought to have examined the other two.

“In fact, they appear to be eyewitnesses to the incident,” the bench said, adding, “The prosecution has withheld the evidence of two material witnesses who could have thrown light on the incident. Hence, this is a case for drawing an adverse inference against the prosecution.”

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)