A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and S P Garg upheld the acquittal, dismissing the police appeal against the trial court's verdict.
"If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis of the evidence on record, the appellate court should not disturb the finding of acquittal recorded by the trial court.
"...We are of the view that the findings recorded by the learned trial court acquitting the accused are not perverse and require no interference," said Justice Garg, writing the verdict for the bench.
The court, however, modified the trial court's order for registration of an FIR against four policemen for faking the alleged encounter and other evidence to implicate the accused.
"It is improbable that the investigating team consisting of more than 15 police officers of different ranks from different police stations would conspire against accused residing at different places to falsely implicate them...
"The petitioners cannot be punished before they are found guilty...The Commissioner of Police is directed to inquire into role and conduct of the petitioners in the investigation of the case and take appropriate action in accordance with Statute/Rules...," it said.
The police had said it had nabbed four of the seven accused after a shootout on night intervening July 1 and 2, 2005 near Delhi-Gurgaon border and had recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from them. The three were arrested later, it had added. (More)