The Supreme Court on Monday declined to disturb the acquittal of 20 persons accused in a 2014 murder case stemming from a Holi-day clash in Washim district, Maharashtra, ruling that the Bombay High Court's decision to extend the benefit of doubt was a “reasonable and possible view” grounded in the evidence on record. The apex court dismissed separate appeals filed by the victim’s mother and the Maharashtra government against the High Court’s 2022 judgment.

Background: The 2014 Holi Clash

The incident occurred on 18 March 2014 in Washim district, triggered by an earlier altercation over the playing of a DJ during Holi celebrations. The trial court had convicted all 20 accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment for the murder of Avinash Chavhan and for attempting to murder three other injured victims. The Bombay High Court, after reappreciating the evidence, acquitted all the accused in 2022, finding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Why the Supreme Court Refused to Interfere

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and AG Masih identified significant inconsistencies between the eyewitness accounts and the medical evidence as the central basis for upholding the acquittal. The court noted that six prosecution witnesses had given strikingly identical testimonies — a pattern it found deeply problematic.

“The High Court was entitled to regard it as a circumstance raising a serious doubt as to whether these witnesses were speaking to what they had seen or to what they had been tutored to say. It is a settled principle that an identical and stereotyped version bears the imprint of tutoring rather than of truthful recollection,” the Justice Karol-led Bench observed.

Medical Evidence and Prosecution Gaps

The court also upheld the High Court’s reliance on medical evidence, which did not support the prosecution’s claim that four accused had repeatedly struck the deceased on the head with iron pipes. “The High Court held it to be impossible that four persons, continuously giving repeated blows upon the head with different weapons, would land every blow upon the same site. This conclusion drawn by the High Court is not the product of conjecture, but it is an inference drawn from the medical evidence,” the judgment stated.

The Supreme Court further recorded that the High Court had taken into account the absence of independent witnesses despite the incident occurring in a residential locality, unexplained delays in recording eyewitness statements, discrepancies in the FIR, lapses in handling case property, and the prosecution’s failure to explain injuries sustained by some of the accused.

Legal Standard Applied

Reiterating settled principles governing appeals against acquittal, the Bench held that an acquittal can be reversed only where it is shown to be perverse or based on a complete misreading of evidence. “It is, at the least, a reasonable and possible view and once it is such a view, it is not liable to be interfered with under Article 136 of the Constitution of India by this Court. The threshold for interference is not crossed in the present case,” the apex court observed.

The court acknowledged that the High Court’s reasoning was “not free from imperfection” but held that any marginal shortcomings did not undermine its ultimate conclusion, which rested on the medical improbability of the prosecution’s version and the unsafe identification of a large assembly based on interested and stereotyped testimony.

Outcome

“Therefore, in our considered view, the acquittal recorded by the High Court is not the product of a perverse or capricious appreciation of the evidence but a reasoned conclusion resting upon the material on record,” the court said, dismissing both appeals and declining to restore the convictions and life sentences imposed by the trial court. The ruling effectively brings to a close a decade-long legal battle over the 2014 Washim Holi violence.