Does Shouting “Maro Sale Ko” Prove Murder? Delhi HC Says No [Read Judgment]

A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja acquits a man convicted of murder over a single shouted exhortation from the back of a bus, holding that a tainted identification parade and the inherent weakness of exhortation as evidence left the prosecution’s case against him unproven, 42 years after the incident and 22 years after his conviction.

The Delhi High Court has acquitted Mukesh Kumar, setting aside his conviction and life sentence for murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), in a case stemming from a fatal bus stabbing in Lajpat Nagar in December 1983. Kumar was never alleged to have wielded a weapon; his conviction rested entirely on the claim that he shouted “Maro Sale Ko” from the back of the bus, making him liable, through the doctrine of common intention, for a stabbing carried out by a co-accused.

The judgment, pronounced on June 18, 2026, comes 22 years after Kumar was convicted by an Additional Sessions Judge in New Delhi and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was suspended by the High Court in 2005, and the appeal has been pending in the interim; both his co-accused did not live to see it decided.

“When the words ‘maro sale ko’ are used, it could mean ‘to beat’ or even ‘to kill’ a person.” - Supreme Court in Matadin & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra (1998)

A Test Identification Parade Under a Cloud of Doubt

The bench found that the test identification parade (TIP) through which witnesses claimed to identify Kumar could not be relied upon. Court records indicated that the accused may have been seen by family members of the deceased and by witnesses before the formal parade was held, and the order sheet from the day of the parade itself was ambiguous as to whether the accused had been kept with covered faces beforehand. The Magistrate who conducted the TIP admitted in his testimony that he could not say whether the accused had been brought directly from judicial custody or had been left exposed outside the courtroom.

Relying on Supreme Court precedent, the Court held that once the integrity of a TIP is in doubt, neither the parade itself nor any subsequent dock identification of the accused during trial can be treated as valid evidence, and that an accused’s refusal to participate in a tainted TIP cannot be held against him.

“...the very foundation of the identification proceedings falls flat to the ground.” - Supreme Court in Raj Kumar @ Bheema v. State of NCT of Delhi (2025)

Why a Shout Wasn’t Enough

Central to the Court’s reasoning was the limited evidentiary weight Indian law attaches to exhortation. To convict under Section 34 IPC, the prosecution must establish a shared, pre-existing or spontaneously formed common intention to commit the specific offence, not mere presence or a fleeting utterance. The Court noted that exhortation has long been treated as inherently weak evidence, given the tendency among witnesses to implicate additional people beyond the actual assailant.

The bench also pointed to material inconsistencies among the eyewitnesses over where the accused was standing, whether the exhortation was heard before or after the stabbing, and whether Kumar had any knowledge that his co-accused were carrying knives. The bus conductor, who was positioned at the same end of the bus through which Kumar allegedly entered, did not corroborate hearing any exhortation or witnessing any assault, a gap the Court found significant.

“The evidence of exhortation is, in the very nature of things, a weak piece of evidence. There is quite often a tendency to implicate some person, in addition to the actual assailant, by attributing to that person an exhortation to the assailant to assault the victim.” 

-Supreme Court in Jainul Haque v. State of Bihar (1974)

Having found both pillars of the prosecution’s case, the identification evidence and the exhortation evidence unreliable, the Court held that the prosecution had failed to establish that Kumar shared a common intention with the co-accused who carried out the stabbing, and that he was entitled to the benefit of doubt.

Background

The case dates to the night of December 1, 1983, when Vinod Kumar, travelling on DTC bus route 431 near Gupta Market in Lajpat Nagar with friends and a nurse he knew, was stabbed by one of three men who boarded the bus and began misbehaving with the women in his group. He succumbed to his injuries the following day. Kumar was arrested nearly a month later, on December 27, 1983, on the strength of a disclosure made by a co-accused.

The Additional Sessions Judge, New Delhi convicted Kumar along with two co-accused on August 10, 2004, and sentenced him to life imprisonment with a fine on August 19, 2004. The appeals filed by his co-accused, Balvinder and Shyam Lal, abated following their deaths in 2012 and 2013, leaving Kumar as the sole appellant.

Setting aside the trial court’s orders, the High Court allowed the appeal, acquitted Kumar of all charges, and discharged his bail bonds and sureties.

Case Details

• Case Title: Shri Mukesh Kumar v. State/NCT of Delhi
• Court: High Court of Delhi at New Delhi
• Bench: Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja
• Case Number: CRL.A. 602/2004
• Date Reserved: May 2, 2026
• Date Pronounced: June 18, 2026
• For Appellant: Mr. Himanshu Anand Gupta, Ms. Mansi Yadav, Mr. Karan Jain, Mr. Mike Desai and Mr. Shekhar Anand Gupta, Advocates
• For Respondent: Mr. Aman Usman, APP with Mr. Manvendra Yadav and Mr. Atiq Ur Rehman, Advocates

[Read Judgment]