Very Unsatisfactory State Of Affairs: Supreme Court Acquits Man Who Was Accused Of Killing His Own Mother In 2010

The Supreme Court has acquitted a man who was accused of matricide i.e., killing of his own mother in the year 2010.

The accused preferred a Criminal Appeal challenging the Judgment of the Bombay High Court, Aurangabad Bench, by which his conviction was upheld for the offence of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).

The two-Judge Bench of Justice K.V. Viswanathan and Justice K. Vinod Chandran remarked, “The evidence of PW-2 is also contradictory to the evidence of PW-9 insofar as the travel to the place of recovery is concerned. While PW-9 stated that the panch witness, the appellant and the police travelled by a jeep, PW-2 has taken a contradictory position. While he first stated that they went by jeep from Bandanur Police Station to the place, he later stated that he does not know who identified the place as he was following the police in his motor vehicle. All this present a very unsatisfactory state of affairs and we are not able to consider the recovery as a link at all in the chain of circumstances.”

The Bench observed that it could not be said that the accused owed an explanation for the cause of death of the deceased as nothing has been demonstrated by the prosecution to show that there was any fact about the alleged incident which was especially within the knowledge of the accused.

Senior Advocate K. Parmeshwar and Advocate Dilip Annasaheb Taur appeared for the Appellant/Accused while Advocate Adarsh Dubey appeared for the Respondent/State.

Case Background

As per the prosecution case, when Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) was on duty, she received a phone call from an unknown person informing that there was doubtful death of a woman (Appellant’s mother/deceased). This was intimated to the Assistant Police Inspector (API) who reached the spot with his staff. According to him, the last rites of the dead body of the deceased were being hurriedly carried out and when he wanted to inspect the dead body, the mob obstructed him. However, he convinced them and inspected the body and found that there was strangulation mark on the neck and injury on the backside of skull with blood oozing.

The crowd, when informed that it was a case of murder, ran away. Thereafter, DSP also reached the spot and noticed the strangulation mark on the neck and injury on the head. The dead body was removed from the pyre and inquest was carried out. Postmortem was also performed that afternoon. Investigation was carried out and chargesheet was laid against two accused persons including the Appellant. The Trial Court convicted both the accused, however, the High Court acquitted one and convicted another i.e., the Appellant. Hence, the Appellant was before the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court in the above context of the case, noted, “We are constrained to hold that, based on the deposition of Dr. PW-6 examined by the prosecution, a serious doubt arises as to whether at all the deceased died a homicidal death. The candid admission of PW-6 that in the absence of ligature mark on the back side of the neck hanging cannot be ruled out and the further reinforcement that in strangulation ligature mark should be present all around the neck lead us to conclude that this is not a case where we can safely opine that the death was by homicide.”

The Court said that there is no definite medical opinion and in view of the considerable ambiguity in the evidence, death by suicide, cannot be said to be completely ruled out.

“We are also reinforced in our view by Modi’s Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology (Twenty Third Edition) which states that normally in case of strangulation, ligature marks are horizontal or traverse continuous”, it added.

The Court took note of the acquittal of other accused on the ground of alleged recovery being insufficient to sustain a conviction.

“The other important aspect is that none of the witnesses PWs – 8, 7, 4 and 9 spoke about the presence of the appellant at the time of the first alleged attempt to cremate the deceased. … Today in the teeth of the evidence of the Investigating Officer that the accused was a resident in the house of Motiram Gitte, it cannot be concluded that the accused resided with the deceased and was with the deceased at the time when she breathed her last”, it observed.

The Court further remarked that once it is not inclined to believe the recovery at all as an aspect implicating the Appellant, it does not have to labour upon the argument on the inconclusive nature of the FSL analysis and the failure to conduct the DNA test.

“It has come on record that the appellant has his father as well as two sisters who are alive. It is not as if that the property would, on the death of the deceased, immediately devolve on the appellant in the event of the alleged murder by him going undetected. There was no statement recorded from even the immediate family of the deceased”, it added.

Conclusion

The Court also said that much was made about the fact that the Appellant never raised hue and cry about the death of his mother and it was the police who unearthed the offence and Section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (Section 6 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023) was invoked to make out a case of unnatural subsequent conduct against the Appellant.

“The motive alleged has not been established. The acquittal of the second accused Balasaheb and the rejection of the evidence of PW-2 insofar as recovery of the nylon rope only reinforces our view. … The courts below have fallen into a serious error in convicting the appellant on the basis of the evidence on record”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal, set aside the impugned Judgment, and acquitted the accused of all charges.

Cause Title- Nilesh Baburao Gitte v. State of Maharashtra (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1191)

Appearance:

Appellant: Senior Advocate K. Parmeshwar, AOR Anil Kumar, Advocates Dilip Annasaheb Taur, Veda, Paras Hegde, and Amol V Deshmukh.

Respondent: AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Advocates Adarsh Dubey, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, and Shrirang B. Varma.

Click here to read/download the Judgment