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The court also expressed doubts about the appellant’s motive for killing the girl, whom he reportedly loved. It observed that since the prosecution failed to prove each circumstance against the appellant, Md Bani Alam Mazid alias Dhan, the lower courts were not justified in convicting…Read More
The SC set aside the Gauhati High Court’s 2010 and trial court’s 2007 judgments and ordered the appellant’s release, if not required in any other case. (File pic/AFP)
The Supreme Court on February 24, 2025, acquitted a man accused of murdering a minor girl in 2003, despite allegations that he was in love with her. The court underscored that in cases based on circumstantial evidence, every circumstance forming the chain must be conclusively proven.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan ruled that none of the circumstances presented by the prosecution to establish the appellant’s guilt could be considered proven, let alone forming a complete chain of evidence.
The court also expressed doubts about the appellant’s motive for killing the girl, whom he reportedly loved. It observed that since the prosecution failed to prove each circumstance against the appellant, Md Bani Alam Mazid alias Dhan, the lower courts were not justified in convicting him.
A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged on August 26, 2003, after the 16-year-old girl had been missing for four days. Her father, the complainant, alleged that the appellant had kidnapped his daughter, who had left home with Rs 60,000 in cash. According to him, Aklima Bibi, the appellant’s mother, and Farid Ali, the husband of the appellant’s elder sister, informed him that the appellant had abducted the girl and taken her to Mukalmuwa with the intention of marrying her. They assured him that the marriage would be arranged and urged him not to file a police complaint. However, following the FIR, the appellant and another accused were arrested, and the girl’s body was recovered near a railway track.
The trial court found both accused guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The high court subsequently dismissed their appeal.
After hearing the counsel of the appellant and the state and going through the evidence, the Supreme Court noted that the prosecution relied on three key circumstances to establish guilt: the appellant and the victim were last seen together, an extrajudicial confession made by the appellant, and the recovery of the body following the alleged confession.
The high court had already discarded the extrajudicial confession on the ground that it was made in the presence of the police.
“In our view, the High Court clearly fell in error in coming to such a conclusion. When one of the three circumstances was disbelieved and discarded by the High Court, then the chain of circumstantial evidence could not have been held to be complete and proved and on that basis to hold the accused guilty of the offence,” the bench said.
The court found significant discrepancies in the evidence of prosecution witnesses who claimed to have last seen the deceased alive with the appellant on August 22, 2003. The girl’s body was recovered five days later, on August 27, 2003, after the FIR had been filed on August 26, 2003.
The bench stressed that if the high court had already rejected one of the key circumstances, it could not be said that the chain of circumstantial evidence was complete, nor could it be inferred beyond doubt that the accused was guilty.
The court also pointed out a considerable time gap between the last sighting of the appellant with the deceased and the recovery of her body. Therefore, it stated that it could not be conclusively established that the appellant alone had committed the crime.
Regarding the recovery of the body, the bench noted, “We find that the circumstance of leading to discovery is intrinsically connected with the circumstance of extra-judicial confessions made by the appellant and the other co-accused. We have already noted that the High Court had rejected the circumstance of extra-judicial confessions as being inadmissible evidence. It was in the course of such extrajudicial confessions that the said prosecution witnesses mentioned about the information given by the accused persons leading to discovery of the dead body.”
Therefore, Section 27 of the Evidence Act cannot come to the aid of the prosecution, the bench said.
“If that be the position, not only the chain of circumstantial evidence is not complete, but all the circumstances put forth by the prosecution to prove the guilt of the appellant cannot be accepted as having been proved as valid pieces of evidence. Therefore, the appellant deserves to be given the benefit of doubt and is entitled to an acquittal on this count,” the court said.
The bench pointed out another glaring lacuna in the prosecution case, as the appellant’s mother Aklima and brother-in-law Farid had told the complainant that they need not worry about their daughter and that they would arrange the marriage of their daughter with the appellant.
If indeed this version were to be believed, both the mother and brother-in-law of the appellant knew the whereabouts of the deceased girl. Therefore, they were material witnesses. Non-examination of such material witness has definitely dented the prosecution case, the court observed.
Additionally, the postmortem report ruled out recent sexual activity, and the cash allegedly taken by the deceased was never recovered. These factors, the court noted, further cast doubt on the prosecution’s narrative.
The SC set aside the Gauhati High Court’s 2010 and trial court’s 2007 judgments and ordered the appellant’s release, if not required in any other case.
