The Supreme Court has acquitted 19 rioters, allegedly responsible for murdering 5 people during a riot in an Andhra Pradesh village in 2000, due to a legal error committed by the state high court in convicting them.

A bench of Justice D.K. Jain and Justice R.M. Lodha acquitted the 19 accused, reiterating an old legal principle that a person, absolved of the charge of participating in a murderous riot, cannot be convicted for killing somebody in the riot.

On the basis of the principle, the court Friday set free 19 people, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by Andhra Pradesh High Court for murdering five people in Thimmapur village in Warangal district on the night of Oct 2, 2000.

Five people, including a woman, were severely beaten and then burnt alive by villagers on suspicion that they practiced sorcery and were responsible for a spate of deaths of cattle in 1997, besides recent deaths of some villagers.

A total of 77 people were arrested for the incident and put on trial.

However, a court in Warangal acquitted them all, giving them benefit of doubt and holding that the prosecution failed to prove its charge 'beyond reasonable doubt' that they actually participated in the riot and committed the mass murders.

The state government challenged the acquittal in the Andhra Pradesh High Court,

The high court, in its Oct 2007 ruling, upheld the trial court verdict in respect of 58 of the accused, but quashed the acquittal of 19 others and convicted them on charges of murdering the five suspected witches.

While convicting the 19 of the murders, the high court, however, did not interfere with that part of the trial court ruling, which acquitted them along with others of the charges of participating in riots. It was this legal error, committed by the high court, which led the apex court to acquit the remaining 19 rioters as well.

'Where an accused is charged under Section 148 of the Indian Penal Code (for rioting armed with deadly weapons) and acquitted, conviction of such accused under Section 302 (murder) could not be legally recorded,' said the apex court in its ruling released late Saturday evening.

'It is true that five people were done to death in the dead of night in a ghastly manner and the whole incident is quite shocking, but in the absence of cogent and reliable evidence against the appellants connecting them to crime, the view of the trial court in passing the judgment of acquittal cannot be said to be unjustified,' it ruled.

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