The Supreme Court has acquitted a murder accused observing that there is no evidence to either prove the kidnapping of the deceased or that he was last seen in the company of the accused.

The appellant accused was convicted under Sections 302 and 364 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and was sentenced to life imprisonment as well as seven years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 of the IPC, with the direction that both the sentences would run concurrently. This judgment and order of conviction was confirmed by the High Court by the impugned Judgment.

The Division Bench of Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale held, “In the absence of such evidence and the fact that both PW-5 and PW-6 have turned hostile, it cannot be held that A-1 was involved in the incident and that he was responsible for the killing of the deceased, on the basis of the last seen theory. There is no evidence to either prove the kidnapping of the deceased Bhoominadhan or that he was last seen in the company of A-1.”

AOR K. K. Mani represented the Appellant while Advocate Prerna Singh represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The deceased was an auto driver and his family consisted of his father and his mother along with elder brother. The appellant accused was known to them as he was also involved in auto business.The mother of the deceased had reported to the Police, that the accused along with his friends while sitting near a Temple were passing obscene remarks against women and were threatening them. On this report a case came to be registered.

A few days thereafter, the father of the deceased lodged an FIR alleging that the appellant accused and his friends forcibly took his son away into their auto and kidnapped him. The next day, the dead body of the deceased was found with multiple injuries. On receiving the information, the witness went there and identified the dead body of his son. Accordingly, the alteration memo was filed adding Section 302 of the IPC in the FIR.

Reasoning

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench noted that the two witnesses PW-5 & PW-6 had not uttered a single word so as to prove the kidnapping as alleged or even that the deceased was with them at any point of time on the date of incident. “The only thing proved from the statements of the aforesaid witnesses is that there was some ‘galata’ under the banyan tree in Talpagiri Colony but they were unable to identify the persons involved in it. They even failed to testify that any information was given by them to PW-1 regarding the alleged kidnapping of the deceased Bhoominadhan”, it noted.

Considering the five golden principles which constitute the panchsheel of the proof of a case based on circumstantial evidence, the Bench held that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the commission of the offence at the hands of the appellant accused.

Thus, holding that both the Trial Court and the High Court erred in convicting the appellant accused on complete misreading of the evidence, the Bench set aside the impugned judgments and acquitted the appellant of all the charges.

Cause Title: Thammineni Bhaskar v. The State of Andhra Pradesh (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1124)

Appearance

Appellant:AOR K. K. Mani, Advocate T.Archana

Respondent: Advocate Prerna Singh, AOR Guntur Pramod Kumar, Advocates Dhruv Yadav, Vanshika Singh

Click here to read/download Judgment


Justice Pankaj MithalJustice Prasanna B. Varale

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.