In Case Of Circumstantial Evidence, Chain Must Be Complete In All Respects To Indicate Guilt Of Accused: SC

The Supreme Court has observed that in the case of circumstantial evidence, the chain must be complete in all respects so as to indicate the guilt of the accused.

The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah said, “We do not find such conclusion of the High Court to be strictly in accordance with law. In a case of circumstantial evidence, the chain has to be complete in all respects so as to indicate the guilt of the accused and also exclude any other theory of the crime. The law is well settled on the above point.”

The Bench referred to the following two cases:

(i) Sharad Birdhichand Sarda vs. State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116

(ii) Sailendra Rajdev Pasvan vs. State of Gujarat Etc. AIR 2020 SC 180

Advocate Ram Swarup Sharma represented the appellant while AAG Nachiketa Joshi and Advocate Yashraj Singh Bundela represented the State.

In this case, an appeal was preferred assailing the correctness of the judgment and order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior dated September 28, 2010, dismissing the appeal of the appellant and confirming the conviction and life sentence recorded by the Trial Court under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

The aforesaid case was of circumstantial evidence. The prosecution led evidence to establish three links of the chain, (i) motive, (ii) last seen, and (iii) recovery of weapon of assault, at the pointing out of the appellant.

The Supreme Court in the above regard noted, “The High Court, while dealing with the evidence on record, agreed with the finding of motive and the last seen, however, insofar as the recovery of the weapon of assault and blood-stained clothes were concerned, the High Court in paragraph 18 of the judgment held the same to be invalid and also goes to the extent to say that the recovery which has been made does not indicate that the appellant has committed the offence.”

The Court further noted that still, the court observed that looking at the entire gamut and other clinching evidence against the appellant of last seen and motive, affirmed the conviction.

“Thus, if the High Court found one of the links to be missing and not proved in view of the settled law on the point, the conviction ought to have been interfered with”, said the Court.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction of the appellant.

Cause Title- Laxman Prasad @ Laxman v. The State of Madhya Pradesh

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