Incomplete Chain of Circumstantial Evidence Cannot Sustain Conviction: Supreme Court

According to the prosecution, on 06.11.2013 at about 9 a.m., the appellant’s mother (the complainant) asked him to buy vegetables. The appellant asked his maternal niece, the victim, to accompany him. The complainant did not permit this, but the prosecution alleged that the appellant took the victim from the house anyway.

When the two did not return, the complainant searched for them and told the victim’s mother that her child was missing. A Missing Report was lodged at Rongli Police Station on 12.11.2013, giving details of both the victim and the appellant. The appellant was traced at Siliguri much later.

The FIR is dated 13.05.2014. It records that while being brought back from Siliguri to Rongli, the appellant stated that he had raped the victim and throttled her to death on 06.11.2013. The corpus of the victim was never traced. On 15.05.2014, certain bones, teeth and other articles were recovered on a memorandum under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (Section 23 of the BSA).

Procedural History

After investigation, a chargesheet was filed. The appellant denied the charge and was tried. The prosecution examined sixteen witnesses and relied on various circumstances. The defence was one of denial.

By judgment dated 20.04.2016 in S.T. (POCSO) Case No. 20 of 2014, the Sessions Court held the appellant guilty under Sections 376(2)(i), 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, [Sections 64, 103(1), and 238 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023] and Sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The High Court of Sikkim, hearing an appeal under Section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Criminal Appeal No. 19 of 2016) (Section 415 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023), re-appreciated the evidence and affirmed the conviction. The appellant then approached the Supreme Court.

Submissions of the Parties

For the appellant, Ms. Sangeeta Kumar argued that the conviction on circumstantial evidence was unsustainable. She submitted that:

• the witnesses were not confident that the appellant was last seen with the victim;
• the prosecution had not explained the steps taken between the Missing Report of 12.11.2013 and the FIR of 13.05.2014;
• the Section 27 IEA (Section 23 BSA) recovery was doubtful because the items were not related to the victim and the spot was frequented by the public, relying on Kattavellai @ Devakar v. State of Tamil Nadu (2025 INSC 845); and
• the FSL and DNA reports did not support the prosecution.

For the State, Mr. Sameer Abhyankar submitted that, in the absence of an eyewitness, the prosecution was justified in relying on clinching circumstances, each of which pointed only to the appellant. He argued that the appellant failed to properly explain the circumstances in his Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) statement, that his admissions strengthened the chain, and that concurrent findings called for no interference. He relied on Naib Singh v. State of Punjab, State of Rajasthan v. Kashi Ram and Manik v. State of Maharashtra.

Issue

The question was whether the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution, taken together, formed a complete chain pointing only to the guilt of the appellant. The Court concluded that the chain was not complete.

The Governing Principle: Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh

The Court began by recalling the settled approach to circumstantial evidence from Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1952), a three-Judge Bench decision. That decision cautions that in such cases conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof. It recalls Baron Alderson’s warning in Reg v. Hodge that the mind tends to adapt circumstances to one another and to supply a missing link.

From Hanumant, the Court drew these requirements:

• the circumstances from which guilt is to be drawn must first be fully established;
• all the established facts must be consistent only with the hypothesis of the accused’s guilt;
• the circumstances must be of a conclusive nature and exclude every hypothesis but the one proposed to be proved; and
• there must be a chain of evidence so complete as to leave no reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused.

The prosecution relied on six circumstances, which the Court examined one by one.

The Court’s Analysis

1. Last Seen Together

The Court found “a grave doubt” about whether the appellant was in fact last seen with the victim. The witnesses did not support the prosecution on this point:

• PW2, the victim’s grandmother, said that after she started her household chores she did not notice whether the appellant and the victim left together or separately. She also said two other persons from the village had visited the house that day. She did not suspect the appellant of killing the victim.
• PW1, a Head Constable, admitted that no witness had seen the appellant take the victim from the house, or seen the appellant missing from the village that day.
• PW3, the victim’s mother, said she had been told that two persons from the village had visited the house before the victim went missing. She could not say whether her daughter had gone with them.
• PW16, the Investigating Officer, admitted that nobody had seen the accused take the victim away.

The Court also considered the time gap. The victim was allegedly last seen on 06.11.2013, and bones and teeth were discovered on 15.05.2014, about six months later. Relying on State of U.P. v. Satish, the Court noted that the last seen theory applies where the gap between the last sighting and the discovery of the deceased is so small that no one other than the accused could have committed the crime. With a long gap and the possibility of others coming in between, concluding guilt without other positive evidence would be “hazardous.” The circumstance was held doubtful.

2. Recovery under Section 27 of the Evidence Act (Section 23 BSA)

The articles, marked MO-I to MO-VIII, were recovered on the appellant’s statement at Exhibit-4. The Court examined where they were found. PW5 and PW8, both witnesses to the recovery, said the spot was not thick jungle, was visited by people collecting fodder, and could be easily seen by anyone visiting it. PW2 added that a water channel nearby brought people to repair it, and that people grazed cattle there.

The Court held that a recovery from a place ordinarily visible to others “should be examined with care.” It also quoted State of Himachal Pradesh v. Jeet Singh for the proposition that mere accessibility of a place to others does not render a Section 27 IEA (Section 23 BSA) recovery inadmissible. As that decision puts it, the crucial question is whether the place was ordinarily visible to others, not whether it was accessible. Applying this, the Court did not discard the recovery outright but held that it must be treated with caution when all the circumstances are weighed together.

3. The DNA Report

The DNA report (Exhibit-37) was perhaps the most telling failure. The two pieces of bone (A2) were found to be of human male origin and not biologically related to the blood samples of the victim’s mother and sister. The victim was female. Autosomal STR analysis was not possible on the hair.

PW13, the Medico-legal Specialist, did not say in his report whether the suspected flat bones were human or animal, could not say whether the tooth was human, and was unsure whether a piece of nail was a nail or a piece of wood. PW16 admitted he could not say whether the bones and teeth belonged to the victim.

The Court held that the prosecution had not shown that the bones and teeth recovered at the appellant’s instance were the victim’s. The DNA report could not be relied upon as a circumstance against him.

4. The FSL Report

The Regional FSL examined MO-I to MO-VIII. PW11, the Analyst, could not ascertain whether the dried blood on the brown shawl (MO-VI) was human or animal. She could not determine the age of the human scalp hair on the shawl or of the hair strands at MO-VII. Human remains could not be detected in the soil sample at MO-VIII. The Court held that the FSL report at Exhibit-16 also could not be relied upon as a circumstance.

5. The Brown Shawl

The prosecution’s case was that, as the appellant stated during the Section 27 IEA (Section 23 BSA) discovery, he took a brown shawl from his sister’s house, laid the victim on it and covered her with his black jacket. The Court found this unsupported:

• PW2 could not identify the shawl in court and did not know whom it belonged to.
• PW16 admitted that the shawl did not belong to the appellant’s mother, though the appellant had said it did.
• PW16 also admitted that no witness had seen the accused go to the victim’s house to fetch the shawl.
• The FSL report could not establish the origin or blood group on the shawl.

This created doubt about the prosecution’s account of the appellant taking the shawl and laying the victim on it.

6. The Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) Statement

The Court gave this circumstance the most detailed treatment. The appellant had admitted that he wanted to take the victim along and that PW2 did not permit it. He agreed that the victim was near the door while he stood near the house, but said he went to the shop alone. He also admitted going to PW4’s residence at about 1 p.m. that day, heavily drunk. He ultimately said he was falsely implicated at PW4’s behest and arrested on suspicion.

The Court found no failure on his part to explain any incriminating circumstance. It then set out the principles on which the circumstance must be judged:

• An accused’s silence or failure to give a reasonable explanation can, in a case resting on circumstantial evidence, act at most as an additional link that completes an already established chain. This was explained in Kashi Ram, on which the State had itself relied.
• It does not shift the burden of proof onto the accused in a criminal trial.

The Court then relied on Raj Kumar Singh @ Raju @ Batya v. State of Rajasthan, which explains that a Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) statement serves the principles of natural justice by giving the accused an opportunity to explain the incriminating material. The Court extracted these propositions:

• The statement cannot be made the basis for conviction.
• The answers cannot be used to fill up the gaps left by the prosecution witnesses in their depositions.
• It is not a substantive piece of evidence. It can be used only to appreciate the evidence the prosecution has led and cannot substitute for it.
• If the prosecution’s evidence is insufficient to sustain conviction, the inculpatory part of the statement cannot be the sole basis of conviction.
• The statement is not made on oath and is not “evidence” within the meaning of Section 3 of the Evidence Act (Section 2 BSA).
• An adverse inference can be drawn only if the incriminating material stood fully established and the accused offered no explanation. The accused also has a right to remain silent.

The Court’s reasoning follows from these propositions. Where the prosecution’s chain is incomplete and does not inspire confidence, the accused’s response under Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) cannot be turned into a circumstance against him. This is especially so when the other circumstantial evidence does not point to the guilt of the appellant alone. The Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) statement therefore could not serve as an additional link, because there was no established chain for it to complete.

Held

Summing up, the Court found the prosecution’s evidence “woefully short” of pointing to the appellant’s guilt:

• witnesses were unsure whether he was last seen with the victim;
• the Section 27 IEA (Section 23 BSA) discovery was from a place ordinarily visible to others and required caution;
• the DNA report showed the bones to be of male origin while the victim was female;
• the FSL report advanced the prosecution’s case no further;
• there was doubt about the brown shawl; and
• the Section 313 CrPC (Section 351 BNSS) statement could not be an additional link.

The Court held that the chain of circumstances had not been formed on the basis of the prosecution evidence. The Sessions Court failed to notice material factors available on record, and the High Court failed to notice the same infirmities. The guilt of the appellant was not established beyond reasonable doubt, and the prosecution evidence created a strong doubt about his involvement.

The Court acknowledged that the victim “met an unfortunate end.” It nonetheless held that it would hardly be justifiable to convict the appellant when none of the circumstances pointed towards his involvement, and it gave him the benefit of doubt. The Court:

• quashed and set aside the Sessions Court judgment, as affirmed by the High Court;
• acquitted the appellant of all offences for which he was tried and convicted;
• directed that he be set free forthwith, if not required in any other case; and
• allowed the appeal.

Click Here to Read the Official Judgment

Legal Takeaway

Suspicion, however strong, and circumstances that are individually doubtful cannot replace a complete and conclusive chain pointing exclusively towards the accused. Each circumstance must first be fully established, and together they must exclude every hypothesis consistent with innocence. Evidence that is inconclusive, such as a DNA report that does not match the victim or an FSL report that cannot identify the blood, cannot be treated as incriminating. A Section 313 statement is not substantive evidence and cannot fill gaps in the prosecution case. At most, it can supply an additional link to a chain the prosecution has already proved.