Summary
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction under Sections 302 and 376 IPC for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl, resting on circumstantial evidence. The chain of circumstances, including discovery of the body in the accused's bathroom, recoveries on his disclosure and DNA evidence with reliable link evidence, was complete. The death sentence question became otiose as the appellant had died. The Court criticised the courts below for not setting out the inferences from the evidence and laid down principles for appraising circumstantial evidence.
Issues
- Whether the prosecution proved, on circumstantial evidence, that the appellant raped and murdered the child victim.
- Whether the link evidence on the custody of the samples sent for forensic and DNA examination was reliable.
- What courts must do when appraising a case based on circumstantial evidence, and what follows for the death sentence on the appellant's death during the appeal.
Provisions considered
- Sections 302 and 376, Indian Penal Code, 1860Conviction for murder and rape affirmed, the Court finding that the circumstantial evidence proved forcible sexual assault on the child followed by strangulation. (¶¶ 2, 26, 27, 31)
- Section 394(2), Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973After the appellant died during the pendency of the appeals, his legal heirs were permitted to continue them to remove the stigma of conviction. (¶ 5)
Held
- Applying the five principles in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda, the circumstances proving guilt must be fully established, consistent only with guilt, conclusive in nature, exclusive of every other hypothesis, and form a chain so complete that no reasonable ground is left for a conclusion of innocence. (¶¶ 14, 15)
- The testimony of the victim's relatives and neighbours, who had no motive to implicate the accused, showed that the house was repeatedly found locked, that the accused deflected a request to search it by saying the key was with his wife, and that the body was found in his bathroom after an earlier search there had revealed nothing; the Court inferred that he shifted the body from the house to the bathroom in the interval. (¶¶ 18, 19, 20)
- The prosecution gave convincing link evidence of safe custody of the samples from seizure until receipt at the forensic laboratory; as the accused did not claim that his semen sample was collected after arrest, there was no possibility of semen bearing his DNA having been planted on the deceased. (¶¶ 23, 24)
- The established circumstances, including blood of the deceased on and beneath the cot in the accused's house, the deceased's clothes recovered there, the DNA match of semen on her skirt with the accused, the post-mortem findings of forcible penetrative assault and strangulation, and recovery of her belongings on his disclosure, formed a complete chain pointing only to his guilt. (¶¶ 22, 25, 26, 27)
- Although agreeing with their conclusions, the Court found the trial court and High Court had examined the testimony without delineating the inferences derivable from it or explaining how an unbroken chain of circumstances was formed. (¶¶ 28, 29)
- In circumstantial evidence cases courts must: analyse each prosecution and defence witness's evidence in its entirety; spell out the reasonable inferences from each witness's testimony; examine whether each circumstance is proved individually and whether together they form a chain consistent only with guilt; explain why evidence is accepted or rejected and how each piece contributes to the conclusion; and show that guilt was found after testing the circumstances against every other reasonable hypothesis. (¶ 30)
- With the appellant dead, the question of executing the death sentence was rendered otiose and the Court did not examine the capital sentence. (¶ 31)
Result
Appeals dismissed and conviction under Sections 302 and 376 IPC affirmed; the question of the death sentence held otiose owing to the appellant's death; pending applications disposed of.