{"id":9629,"date":"2026-09-08T12:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/?p=9629"},"modified":"2026-09-08T12:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:11:15","slug":"42-years-later-rajasthan-hc-acquits-7-surviving-accused-in-1982-double-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/42-years-later-rajasthan-hc-acquits-7-surviving-accused-in-1982-double-murder-case\/","title":{"rendered":"42 Years Later, Rajasthan HC Acquits 7 Surviving Accused in 1982 Double-Murder Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jaipur:<\/strong> After nearly 42 years of legal battle, the Rajasthan High Court has set aside the 1984 conviction and acquitted seven surviving accused in a 1982 double-murder case involving the deaths of Hawalia and Kanhaiya in Tonk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Division Bench of Justice Mahendar Kumar Goyal and Justice Pramil Kumar Mathur held that the prosecution failed to establish the accused\u2019s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

200\u2013250 Villagers Allegedly Attacked Kanjar Basti<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The case originated from an incident on June 3, 1982, at Kanjar Basti in Rajmahal, Tonk. According to the prosecution, tensions had been prevailing between the basti residents and villagers, who had allegedly boycotted the residents and prevented them from entering the village or carrying out business there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At around 5 a.m., 4\u20135 villagers allegedly came to the basti and accused its residents of stealing two bundles of fodder. They allegedly demanded that the persons responsible be handed over and asked Tarachand and his father, Hawalia, to accompany them to the village panchayat. The request was refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the prosecution, villagers were subsequently gathered by beating a drum, and at around 7 a.m., nearly 200\u2013250 villagers armed with lathis attacked the basti. Hawalia and Kanhaiya were allegedly beaten to death, while 12 others sustained injuries. The prosecution also alleged that houses and household belongings were set on fire and some articles were stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33 Accused Were Charge-Sheeted<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

An FIR was registered at Police Station Duni, District Tonk, under various provisions including Sections 302, 147, 148, 149, 436, 325, 323 and 379 IPC.
Following investigation, 33 accused were charge-sheeted. One accused died during the trial. The trial court ultimately acquitted 12 accused and convicted the remaining accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contradictions in Witness Testimony<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

While examining the appeal, the High Court scrutinised the evidence against each surviving appellant separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bench found material contradictions and improvements in the statements of prosecution witnesses. In several instances, witnesses had not named the accused in their earlier statements, while some later made allegations that were inconsistent with their police statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court also noted that some witnesses had described certain accused as villagers who were attempting to prevent the assault, rather than as members of the attacking group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mere Presence Among 200\u2013250 Villagers Not Enough<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The High Court specifically held that the presence of 200\u2013250 villagers at the spot could not, by itself, establish that every person present was a member of the unlawful assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court observed that the evidence indicated that some villagers had actually tried to dissuade the assailants from attacking the residents. Therefore, the involvement of each accused had to be assessed individually on the evidence available against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court Says Conviction Cannot Rest on Unreliable Evidence<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Bench relied on the principles laid down by the Supreme Court concerning identification of individual accused in cases involving large unlawful assemblies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court found that in several cases, the evidence against the accused was either inconsistent or rested substantially on the testimony of a single witness whose evidence was not found sufficiently reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1984 Conviction Quashed After Four Decades<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Concluding that the prosecution had failed to prove the guilt of the appellants beyond reasonable doubt, the High Court set aside the convictions under Section 302\/302 read with Section 149 IPC as well as the other offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Division Bench consequently quashed the Sessions Court’s September 17, 1984 judgment and acquitted the surviving appellants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jaipur: After nearly 42 years of legal battle, the Rajasthan High Court has set aside the 1984 conviction and acquitted seven surviving accused in a 1982 double-murder case involving the deaths of Hawalia and Kanhaiya in Tonk. A Division Bench of Justice Mahendar Kumar Goyal and Justice Pramil Kumar Mathur held that the prosecution failed … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69],"tags":[2806,594,542,223,2805,2814,1503,2808,2810,1796,2816,1081,43,150,2811,2807,2813,2817,1572],"class_list":["post-9629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-rajasthan-high-court","tag-1984-conviction","tag-acquittal","tag-criminal-appeal","tag-division-bench","tag-hawalia-murder-case","tag-justice-mahendar-kumar-goyal","tag-justice-pramil-kumar-mathur","tag-kanhaiya-murder-case","tag-kanjar-basti","tag-laws-and-legals","tag-prosecution-evidence","tag-rajasthan-hc-judgment","tag-rajasthan-high-court","tag-rajasthan-legal-news","tag-seven-accused-acquitted","tag-tonk-double-murder-case","tag-tonk-news","tag-unlawful-assembly","tag-witness-testimony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9630,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9629\/revisions\/9630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}