Supreme Court of India

Magan Bihari Lal v. State of Punjab.

Neutral citation
Bench P.N. Bhagwati and S. Murtaza Fazal Ali JJ.
Decided 15 February 1977

INSC stands for INDIAN SUPREME COURT. A neutral citation scheme assigned by the Court itself, so a judgment can be cited without depending on a commercial law reporter. INSC is the neutral citation scheme assigned by the Supreme Court, so a judgment can be cited without depending on a commercial law reporter.

3 Supreme Court benches have cited this judgment.

What the Court ordered

We are of the view that the prosecution has totally failed to bring home the charge against the appellant and hence our order dated 28th January, 1977 setting aside the order of conviction and sentence recorded against the appellant and acquitting him of the offences charged against him.

Judgment, p. 1014

From the headnote

Evidence-Value of opinion evidence-Conviction on the basis solely of opinion evidence of a handwriting expert without corroboration is unsafe-Evidence Act (Act No. 1 of 1872), s. 45-Probative value of circumstantial evidence. A certain consignment of iron sheets despatched by M/s. Hindustan Steel Plant EXBNDM (Banda Bunda, near Bhilai) to Bikaner in wagon No. SEKG 4875 was carried to Ludhiana via. Agra because at some point of time before it reached Agra, the labels attached to the wagons were either changed or removed and the entry in the vehicle summary guidance was also tampered with and changed to EXLAR to LDH indicating that the wagon was despatched from Lalitpur and its destination was Ludhiana.

Authorities it was built on

Where later benches applied it

Of those, 1 relied on · 2 referred to

Sign in free to read it

  • The full judgment, page by page, as published in the Supreme Court Reports
  • The ratio: what the Court held, verbatim, with the page it sits on
  • Every bench that relied on it, and every bench that argued against it
  • Search every reported judgment, by party, citation or question
  • Download the PDF, copy pinpoint citations ready for a filing
Sign in to read - for free

An email address, no password.