Holding

The conviction under Section 302 IPC was set aside because the prosecution failed to establish a complete chain of circumstances and exclude all other hypotheses, thereby not meeting the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Summary

The appellant, Ganpat Singh, was convicted for the murder of Shantabai, whose body was discovered in a dry well and identified as the mother of a minor. The trial court relied on circumstantial evidence: the deceased was last seen with the appellant, silver ornaments allegedly lent to her were recovered from the appellant's house, and the appellant allegedly facilitated the recovery of the body. The High Court disbelieved the ornaments link but upheld the conviction on the basis of the last‑seen theory and the claim that the body was recovered at the appellant's behest, an assertion later found erroneous. The Supreme Court held that the prosecution failed to establish a complete, unbroken chain of circumstances and could not exclude alternative hypotheses, especially given the time gap between the last sighting and the estimated time of death and the contradictions in witness testimony. Consequently, the conviction under Section 302 IPC was set aside, the appeal was allowed, and the appellant's bail bond was discharged.

Issues considered

Whether the circumstantial evidence presented was sufficient to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt under Section 302 IPC.
Whether the recovery of the deceased's body at the appellant's instance constitutes a valid link in the chain of circumstances.
Whether the lapse of time between the appellant's last sighting with the deceased and the estimated time of death negates the 'last seen' doctrine.
Whether contradictions in witness statements and lack of identification of recovered ornaments break the chain of circumstantial evidence.

Legislation cited

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973s. 161
Indian Penal Code, 1860s. 302

Subjects

circumstantial evidencemurderSection 302 IPCchain of circumstancesreasonable doubtlast seen doctrinebody recoveryappeal

Judgment

[2017) 9 S.C.R. 706

A GANPAT SINGH
v.
THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH
(Criminal Appeal No. 630 of2009)
B SEPTEMBER 19,2017
[N. V. RAMANA ANU DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, JJ.f
Penal Code, 1860 - s. 302 - Dead body found in a dry well
- identified to be that of PW-4 '.~ mother - Appellant absconded
immediately aper the incident - Trial Court found appellant guilty
c
entirely 011 basis of circumstantial evidence - High Court affirmed
the conviction of the appellant - On appeal, held: There is manifest
error on the part of the High Court in holding that the body of the
deceased was recovered at the instance of the appellant - The
appellant was arrested several months after the recovery of the body
D - Hence, the recove1:v of the body could not have been (and was
not) at his instance - The mere circumstance that the appellant was
last seen with the deceased is an unsafe hypothesis to found a
conviction on a charge of murder in instant case - The lapse of time
between the point when the appellant was last seen with deceased
and the time of death is not minimal - The time of death was
E
estimated to be between two tO'four weeks prior to the recove1y of
the body - insofar, the testimony of son of deceased, that appellant
informed him that deceased had stayed back - This coupled with
the fact that the appellant had absconded after the date of the
incident is a strong suspicion that the appellant was responsible for
F the·death - However, a strong suspicion in itself is not s11f.flcient to
lead to the conclusion that the guilt of the appellant stands
established beyond reasonable doubt - There are material
contradictions in the case of the prosecution - The prosecution fi1i!ed
to establish a complete chain of circumstances and to exclude
G every hypothesis other than the guilt of the appellant.
The case of the prosecution is that a dead body was found in a
dry well. The body was identified to be of PW-4's mother. Based on
circumstaptial evidence the Sessions Judge found the Appellant guilty
u/s. 302 of the IPC and sentenced him to imprisonment for life.

H
706
GANPAT SINGH v. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH 707

The High Court did not rely upon the alleged recove1y of the A
silver ornaments which was a material circumstance which the Sessions
Judge had found to link the Appellant with the murder. Nonetheless,
::::::11three circumstances weighed with the High Court in affirming the
-conviction of the Appellant, viz. (i) deceased was last seen in the company
-of the accused; (ii) the accused made false statement to the son of the
deceased Rakesh (PW-4) that her mother had gone to the maternal B
aunt; (iii) the body of the deceased was recovered at the instance·ofthe
accused. Hence, the present appeal.
Allowing the appeal, the Court
HELD: 1.1 There are no eye-witnesses to the crime. In a c
case which rests on circumstantial evidence, the law postulates a
two-fold requirement. First, every link in the chain. of
circumstances necessary to establish the guilt of the accused must
be established by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt.
Second, all the circumstances must be consistent only with the
guilt of the accused. [Para 91 f711-F-Gf · D
1.2 The case of the prosecution is riddled with unexplained
contradictions, PWland PW2 were crucial_ to the case of the
prosecution for establishing that the deceased had visited them
and that they had lent her silver ornaments ostensibly because
she intended to arrange the engagement of her son PW4. E
Admittedly, neither PWl nor PW2 were called· upon to identify
the jewellery alleged to have been recovered from the house of
the Appellant. PWl stated that the jewellery \\~hich
., she had lent
weighed more than half a kg. PW2 deposed that the ornaments
which she had lent weighed about 1.25 kgs. In the course of her F
I .
cross-examination, PWl stated that it was true that the ornaments
which she had lent were commonly worn by women in the villages.
PW2 also admitted that there were no identification mar.ks on
the ornaments and they were of a nature that is commonly used.
PWS, the daughter of the deceased, had (as 'the High Court
observed) no opportunity to observe the ornaments on the person G
of the deceased. The ornaments had no special mark.s of
identification. PWS materially improved upon her version during ·
the course of the examination. On this state of the evidence, the
recovery 9f the silver ornaments (which was an important link in
H
708 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2017) 9 S.C.R. . ,

A the chain of circumstances relied upon by the Additional Sessions -
Judge) has been correctly disbelieved by the High Court. [Para ~
' 11] [713-A-D]
2. An important circumstance which weighed with the High
Court was that the body of the deceased was recovered at the
B behest of the Appellant. There is a manifest error on the part of
the High Court in arriving at this conclusion since the record
would indicate that the body of the deceased was recovered several
months before the arrest of the Appellant. The mere circumstance
that the Appellant was last seen with the deceased is an unsafe
hypothesis to found a conviction on a charge of murder in this
C case. The lapse of time between the point when the Appellant
was last seen with the deceased and the time of death is not
·minimal. The time of death was estimated to be between two to
four weeks prior to the recovery of the body. [Para 12] [712-E-F]
3. The testimony of PW 4 is that when he enquired regarding
D when~abouts of his mother-deceased, the Appellant informedhim
that she had stayed back .at the house of her sister. This, co11pled
with the fact that the Appellant had absconded after the dat~ of
the incident is a pointer to a strong suspicion that the Appellant
was responsible for the death of victim. However, a strong
E suspicion in itself is not sufficient to lead to the conclusion that
the guilt of the Appellant stands established beyond reasonable
doubt. There are material contradictions in the case of the
prost!cution. These have been noticed in the earlier part of its
judgment and are sufficient to entitle the Appellant to the.benefit
of doubt. The prosecution failed to establish a complete chain of
F circumstances and to exclude every hypothesis other than the
guilt of the Appellant. [Para 13] [713-G-H; 714-A-B]
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal AJ>peal
No. 630 of 2009.
G From the Judgment and Order dated 22.03.2007 of the High Court
of Madhya Pradesh bench at Indore in Criminal Appeal No. 848 of
1998.
Shakil Ahmed Syed, Mohd. Parvez Dabas, Uzmil Jameel Husain,
Advs. for the Appellant.
H
GANPAT SINGH v. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH 709

Ms. Sakshi Kakkar, Gaurav Shukla, AlokKumar Pandey (for C. A
D. Singh), Advs. for the Respondent.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
DR. D.Y. CHANDRACHUD, J. J. This .appeal arises from a
judgment of a Division Bench of the Madhya PradeshH.igh Court in its
bench at Indore, rendered on 22 March 2007. The High_ Court affirmed B
the conviction of the Appellant under Secti6n '.30z"Of~1.7-Jndiii11Penal
Code ("IPC"). . .
2. Shantabai was a widow. Her husband Mangilal had died about
·a decade earlier. She resided together with her son Rakesh, who was a
minor. The prosecution alleges that the Appellant.would visit her c
frequently.
· 3: The case of the prosecution is that on 8 July 1996, the police
•· station at Doraha received information of a dead.body being found in a
dry well. A 'missing report' .had bee1i lodged by Rakesh. Rak~sh had
alleged that the Appellant used to frequently visit the house where D
Shantabai resided and had started to Jive there. Rakesh informed the
police that a few days earlier, the Appellant had come to the house and·
had left the next morning with his mother for Sihore soon thereafter. On. ·
· the next day, whe~ the Appellant returned alone, Rakesh enquired ;f the .
whereabouts of his mother. The Appellant allegedly' informed him that . E ·
she had stayed back at the home of Rakesh's maternal aunt. A First
lnfo1mation Report was registered. A post-mortem w~s. conducted on
the body which had been recovered from the dry well, which was identified·
to be that of Shantabai. The body was decomposed and there was a
piece of cloth loosely tied arouri'd the neck. The period of death was
estimated to be between two to four weeks prior to the recovery.ofthe F
. dead body. The Appellant is stated to have absconded immediately after
. the incident. He was arrested cin 12 December 1997. The appellant was
· tried on the charge ofmurder.
4. The prosecution examined fifteen eye-witnesses. Among them
were Rakesh~ PW4 a'nd Rekha-PW5, the married daughter of the G
deceased. PW 1-Kamlabai and PW2-Dhankun\varbai deposed that
Shantabai had visited their homes with a request to lend certain silver
ornaments to her since she intended to arrange' the engagement of her
· son, PW 4- Rakesh. The evidence of these two witnesses
. ..· .
was sought to
H
710 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (2017) 9 S.C.R.

A be buttressed by a recovery of silver ornaments from the house of the
Appellant. PW3- Phool Singh was a witness for the prosecution in support
of the se.izure memo. PW4- Rakesh deposed that the Appellant had
taken his mother along with him under the pretext of getting Rakesh
engaged. PW4 stated that on the next day, when the Appellant returned
B alone, he enquired about the whereabouts ofhis mother when the Appellant
informed him that she had stayed back with her sister. PW4 stated that
he made inquiries with his maternal aunt who informed him that his
mother had not visited her.
5. The Additional Sessions Judge by a judgment dated 23 June
1998 found the Appellant guilty of an offence under Section 302 of the
C !PC and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. The case rested entirely
on circumstantial evidence. The circumstances which weighed with the
trial court were that : (i) the deceased was last seen accompanying the
Appellant; (ii) the deceased had taken with her the jewelle1y of PWI
and PW2 which was recovered from the Appellant; and (iii) the Appellant
D had no explanation of how the articles were found in his possession.
6. In appeal, the High Court by its judgment dated 22 March 2007,
disbelieved the case of the prosecution on the recovery of the silver
ornaments from the house of the Appellant. The High Court noticed that
only three silver ornaments had been recovered which were identified
E by Rekha; PW5 who was the daughter of the deceased. Significantly, as
the High Court noted, the prosecution had no explanation as to why
there was no identification of the-silver ornaments by PW 1-Kamlabai
and PW2- Dhankunwarbai who were alleged to have lent their ornaments
to the deceased. The ornaments had no special marks of identification
and were commonly available in the market. The High Court observed
F that Rekha, PW5 had no occasion to observe the ornaments since her
mother had only visited briefly. PW5, in the course of her deposition,
stated for the first time that one of the ornaments belonged to her but
then changed her statement and stated that it belonged to her mother.
The High Court noticed a clear contradiction with her statement under
G Section 161 of the CrPC. The recovery of the ornaments from the house
of the Appellant has hence been disbelieved. The High Court also noted
in the course of the judgment that Rakesh, PW4 had exaggerated what
he claimed to know, in the course of his deposition. PW4 stated that the
Appellant had admitted to him that he had killed Shantabai but no such
statemerit was made under.Section 161 of the CrPC.
H
GAN PAT SINGH v. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH 711
[DR. D.Y. CHANDRACHUD, J.]

7. In the above background, the High Court did not n;ly upon the A
alleged recovery of the silver ornaments which was a material
circumstance which the Additional Sessions Judge hac;I found to linkthe
Appellant with the murder ofShantabai. Nonetheless, three circumstances
weighed with the High Court in affirming the convictioi1 of the Appellant.
These are summarized in the following extracts of the ji1dgment of the B.
High Court :
"Thus, to summarize the facts :-
(i) The deceased was last seen in the company of the accused.
(ii) The accused made false statement to the son of the deceased
Rakesh (PW-4) thather mother had gone to the maternal aunt. c
(iii) That the body of the deceased was recovered at the instance of
the accused."· ·
8. During the course of the hearing of the appeal,. it has been
submitted on behalf of the Appellant t_hat the third circumstance noted D.
above reveals a clear error by the High Court since the body of the ·
deceased was recovered on 8 July 1996 whereas the Appellant was
arrested on 12 December 1997. This aspect has not been disputed by
learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent-state. Hence,
there is a manifest error on the part of the High Court in holding that the
body of the deceased was reco.:~red at the instance of the Appellant. E
The Appellant was arrested several months after the recovery of the ·
body. Hence, the recovery of the ~ody could not have been (and was
not) at his instance. That essen~ially leaves the court only with the first
two circumstances which have been re.Jied upon by the High Court.
9. There are no eye-witnesses to the crime. In a: case which rests F
on circumstantial evidence, the law postulates a two-fold requirement.
First, every link in the chain of circumstances necessary to esta.blish the
guilt of the accused must be established by the prosecution beyond
reasonable doubt. Second, all the circumstanpes must be consistent only
with the guilt of the accused:. The principle has been consistently G
formulated thus : · ·
"The normal principle in a case based on circumstantial evidence
is that the circun1stances from which an inference of guilt is sought
to be drawn must be cogently and firmly established; that those
circun1stances shouid be of a definite tendency unerringly pointing
H
712 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2017] 9 S.C.R.

A towards the guilt of the accused; that the circumstances taken
cumulatively should form a chain so complete that there is no
escape from the conclusion that within all human probability the
crime was committed by the accused and they should be incapable
of explanation on any hypothesis other than that of the guilt of the
accused and inconsistent with his innocence".'
B
10. Evidence that the accused was last seen in the company of
the deceased assumes significance when the lapse of time between the
point when the accused and the deceased were seen together and when
the deceased is found dead is so minimal as to exclude the possibility of
a supervening event involving the death at the hands of anotht~r. The
c settled formulation of law is as follows :
"The last seen theory comes into play wht.:re the time gap between ,
the point of time when the accused and deceased were seen last
alive and when the deceased is found dead is so small that possibility
of any person other than the accused being the author of crime
D becomes impossible. It would be difficult in some cases to positively
establish that the deceased was last seen with the accused when
there is a long gap and possibility of other persons coming in
between exists. Jn the absence of any other positive evidence to
conclude that accused and deceased were last seen together, it
E would be hazardous to come to a conclusion of ):,'Uilt in those
cases". 2

I Sec Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, ( 1984) 4 sec 116: Ramrcddy

Rajeshklian·na Reddy v. State ofAndhra Pradesh, (2006) 10 SCC 172: Trimukh Maroti
Kirkan v. State of Maharashtra, (2006J 10 SCC 681: Vcnkatesan v. State of Tamil
F Nadu, (2008) 8 SCC 456; Sanjay Kumar Jain v. State of Delhi, (2011) 11 SCC 733:
Madhu v. State of Kerala, (2012) 2 SCC 399: Munna Kumar Upadhyaya~'!· Munna
Upadhyaya v. State ofAndhra Pradesh, (2012) 6 sec 174: Vivek Katra v. State of
Rajasthan. (2014) 12 sec 439."

2 See Bodh Raj @Bodha v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, (2002) 8 sec 45: Jaswant Gir
G v. State of Punjab (2005) 12 SCC 438: Tipparam Prabhakar v. State ofAndhra Pradesh,
(20091 13 SCC 534; Rishi Pal v. State ofUttarakhand, (2013) 12 SCC 551: Krishnan v.
State ofTamil Nadu, (2014) 12 SCC 279; Kiri ti Pal v. State of West Bengal. (2015) 11
sec 178; State ofKarnataka v. Chand Basha. (2016) I sec 501: Rambraksh V, State
ofChhattisgarh, (2016) 12 SCC 251; Anjan Kumar Shanna v. State of Assam, 2017 (6)
SCALE556."

H
v.
GANPAT SINGH THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH . 713 .
[DR. D.Y. CHANDRACHUD, J.]

. 1i . The case of the prosecution is riddled with unexplained .·A.·
contradictions, PW 1-Kamlabai and PW2-Dhankunwarbai were crucial ·
to the case of the prosecution for establishing that the deceased had
· visited them and that they had lent her silver ornaments ostensibly
becmise she intended to arrange the engagement of her son Rakesh-
PW4. Admittedly, neither PWl nor PW2 were called upon to identify B
the jewellery alleged to have been recovered from the house of the
Appellant. PWl stated that the jewellery which she had lent weighed
more than half a kg. PW2 deposed that the ornaments which she had
lent· weighed about 1.25 kgs. In the course of her cross-examination,
PWI stated that it was true that the ornaments which she had lent were
commonly worn by women in the villages. PW2 also admitted that C
there were no identification marks on the ornaments and they were of a
nature that is commonly used. PWS-Rekha, the daughter or the deceased,
had (as the High Court observed) no opportuni~y _to observe the
ornaments on the person or'the deceased. The ornaments had no special.
marks ofidentification. PW5 materially improved upot1 her version during
. the course of the examination. On this state of the evidence, the recove1y · D
· · of the silver ornaments (which was an important link in the chain of
· . circumstances relied upon by the Additional Sessions Judge) has been
correctly disbelieved by the High Court.
12. An important circumstance which weighed with the High Court
was .that the body of the deceased was recovered at the behest ofthe E
Appellant. There is a manifest error on the part of the High Coui't in
arriving at this conclusion since the record would indicate that the body
of the deceased was recovered several months before the arrest of the
Appellant. The mere circumstance that the Appellant was last seen with
the deceased is an unsafe hypothesis to found a conviction on a charge F
of murder in this case. The lapse of time between the point when the
Appellant was last seen with the deceased and the time of death is not
minimal. The iime of death was estimated to be between two to four
weeks prior to the recovery of the body.·
13. We must also place in balance the testimony of PW4 that G
when he enquired regarding whereabouts of his mother, theAppellant
informed him that she had stayed back at the house of her sister. This,
coupled with the fact that the Appellant had absconded after the date of
the incident is a pointer to a strong suspicion that the Appellant was ·
responsible for the death of Shantabai. However, a strong suspicion in.
H
714 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2017] 9 S.C.R.

A itself is not sufficient to lead to the conclusion that the guilt of the Appellant
stands established beyond reasonable doubt. There are material
contradictions in the case of the prosecution. These have been noticed
in the earlier part of its judgment and are sufficient in our view to entitle
the Appellant to the benefit of doubt. The prosecution failed to establish
B a complete chain of circumstances and to exclude eve1y hypothesis other
than the guiit of the Appellant.
14. We accordingly allow the appeal and set aside the conviction
of the Appellant under Section 302 of the IPC. The appellant is on bail.
His bail bonds are discharged.
c
Ankit Gyan Appeal allowed.