Suspicion However Strong, Cannot Replace Evidence: Supreme Court Acquits Three Men Accused Of Killing 10-Year-Old Boy In 2007

The Supreme Court has acquitted three men who were accused of killing a ten-year-old boy in the year 2007, who went missing while guarding his family’s mango orchard.

A Criminal Appeal was preferred by the accused persons challenging the Judgment of the Uttarakhand High Court, which upheld their conviction for the offence of murder.

The two-Judge Bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma observed, “Despite the inconclusive forensic report, the High Court dismissed the absence of DNA evidence as inconsequential and affirmed the conviction solely on ocular testimony. Such an approach is untenable in a case based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Where scientific evidence is neutral or exculpatory, courts must give it due weight. To convict on doubtful testimony while ignoring scientific tests is to substitute suspicion for proof. The Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that suspicion, however strong, cannot replace evidence.”

The Bench said that the medical evidence proves the fact of homicidal death but does not implicate the Appellants.

AOR Sarvam Ritam Khare represented the Appellants/Accused, while AOR Akshat Kumar represented the Respondent/State.

Brief Facts

On the morning of June 5, 2007, the deceased boy went to the family’s mango orchard near Kishanpur to stand guard, but he did not return home. By late evening, his prolonged absence caused alarm and his father organized a search with family members and co-villagers. Their efforts proved fruitless and the next day, the search was resumed. At that time, the boy’s lifeless body beneath a mulberry tree near a pit on the family’s land was discovered. A rope was found tightened around his neck, his hands tied behind his back with a rope, and an axe drenched in blood lying close by. Subsequently, a complaint was lodged and the deceased’s father expressed suspicion against six co-villagers with whom he had a long-standing enmity.

Two of the three Appellants were not named in the initial FIR but during the investigation, their names were also implicated. A chargesheet was filed against all the accused persons under Sections 302, 201, 377, and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). The Trial Court acquitted five of the accused and the Appellants were convicted under Sections 302, 201, and 120-B IPC and acquitted under Section 377 of IPC. They were sentenced to undergo life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs. 5,000/- each. The High Court upheld their conviction, saying that the chain of circumstances was sufficient to bring home the guilt of the Appellants. This was under challenge before the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court in the above regard, noted, “In the present case, it is clear that the identification of the appellants by PW-3 and PW-4 cannot be accepted with confidence. PW-3 himself admitted he had never known Nazim or Aftab previously, yet no TIP was conducted. His alleged sighting was from a considerable distance while engaged in harvesting work, with his line of sight obstructed, and the natural witnesses present with him were not examined. PW-4, though a co-villager, failed to mention his alleged sighting either in the FIR or during the search for the missing child, and could not even recall the timing of him informing PW-1 about it.”

The Court added that both witnesses identified the Appellants for the first time in Court, which, in the absence of a TIP (Test Identification Parade), renders their dock identification less credible and their testimonies, therefore, cannot constitute reliable evidence of identification.

“Even apart from the deficiencies in identification, the ‘last seen’ theory is itself a weak link unless the prosecution establishes a narrow time gap between when the accused and the deceased were seen together and the recovery of the body, such that the possibility of intervention by a third person is excluded”, it said.

The Court reiterated that the Courts cannot presume the presence of the deceased with the accused indirectly or through conjecture and here, to accept the last seen circumstance would require precisely such inference, stretching two vague and temporally separated sightings into a conclusion of guilt.

“The law does not permit such an approach. The last-seen evidence in this case, therefore, fails to meet the threshold laid down by this Court. It neither rules out alternative hypotheses nor completes the chain of circumstances, and instead leaves wide gaps inconsistent with conviction”, it added.

The Court held that the absence of TIP renders the witnesses’ identification unreliable and secondly, even if their testimony is accepted, ‘last-seen’ theory alone is insufficient to sustain the conviction in the circumstances of the present case.

“The High Court’s reliance on PW-3 and PW-4 overlooks this cautionary principle. … the manner in which the rope and axe were dealt with by the investigating agency, and later by the courts below, is deeply unsatisfactory”, it remarked.

The Court further noted that no opinion could be given on a match with the blood samples of the Appellants and in effect, the only scientific evidence available was neutral as it neither connected the Appellants to the crime nor corroborated the oral testimony.

Conclusion

The Court observed that the investigating officer admitted that villagers were present during the seizure of soil samples, but none were called to testify and such lapses diminish the credibility of the recovery and, by extension, the evidentiary value of the rope.

“The forensic report is neutral, the recovery is procedurally suspect, and the High Court failed to grapple with these deficiencies. When the only scientific evidence available neither supports the prosecution’s narrative nor connects the accused to the crime, it is impermissible to uphold a conviction solely on doubtful eyewitness testimony”, it also said.

The Court was of the view that the case of the prosecution with respect to motive is also tenuous and the motive alleged by the prosecution is only that the Appellants sought revenge for an insult to their sister.

“… the supposed motive is speculative and there is no evidence that the Appellants bore any grudge against a ten-year-old child. … In light of the foregoing discussion, we are of the considered view that the prosecution has failed to establish a complete and unbroken chain of circumstances. The circumstances on record are not consistent with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and fail to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis, including their innocence. As is well-settled, suspicion, however strong, cannot take the place of proof. Accordingly, the Appellants are entitled to the benefit of the doubt”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal and acquitted the accused persons.

Cause Title- Nazim & Ors. v. The State of Uttarakhand (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1184)

Appearance:

Appellants: AOR Sarvam Ritam Khare, Advocates K.K. Tyagi, Iftekhar Ahmad, and Garima Tyagi.

Respondent: AOR Akshat Kumar and Advocate Anubha Dhulia.

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