{"id":133991,"date":"2017-05-26T13:22:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T07:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=133991"},"modified":"2017-06-09T10:21:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T04:51:57","slug":"in-the-absence-of-corroborative-evidence-last-seen-theory-cannot-be-made-the-basis-of-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2017\/05\/26\/in-the-absence-of-corroborative-evidence-last-seen-theory-cannot-be-made-the-basis-of-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"In the absence of corroborative evidence, last seen theory cannot be made the basis of conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court: <\/strong>The bench comprising of L.Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha, JJ. held that in the absence of conclusive and consistent proof of circumstantial chain of evidence which lead to the only \u201chypothesis of guilt\u201d against the accused then, only circumstance of last seen cannot be made basis of conviction.<\/p>\n

In the case where the accused were charged with rape and murder of the deceased whose severed body was found on the railway track after she was seen in the house of one of the accused persons, the Gauhati High Court held them guilty for causing death in furtherance of common intention, under Section 302\/34 and for tampering with evidences, under sec 201 of Penal Code 1860 and awarded life imprisonment for the same. Prosecution relied on blood samples, postmortem certificate and last seen theory to form chain of evidence.<\/p>\n

The Court held that there exist no conclusive proof of corroboration of statement of investigation and the blood stains found on murder weapon couldn\u2019t be established. The Court allowed the appeal and reversed the decision of High Court, stating that last seen together cannot be the only ground for holding accused guilty, a connectivity must be established, the circumstance of \u201clast seen together\u201d does not by itself and necessarily lead to the inference that it was the accused who committed the crime. It further stated that due to the lack of corroborative evidence the appellants are acquitted of the charges under Section 302, 201 read with 34 Penal Code 1860. [Anjan Kumar Sharma v. State of Assam, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 622,<\/a> decided on 23.05.2017]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court: The bench comprising of L.Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha, JJ. held that in the absence of conclusive and consistent proof <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":154914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[6431,9641,3468,18021,2948,2572],"class_list":["post-133991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casebriefs","category-supremecourt","tag-beyond-reasonable-doubt","tag-chain-of-circumstances","tag-conviction","tag-last-seen","tag-murder","tag-Rape"],"yoast_head":"\nIn the absence of corroborative evidence, last seen theory cannot be made the basis of conviction | SCC Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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Supreme Court acquits men accused in 2001 murder case","author":"Editor","date":"March 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court opined that the evidence has to be scrutinized so as to ensure that the totality of the evidence and circumstances relied on, did constitute a complete chain and directly points to the guilt of the convict.","rel":"","context":"In "Case Briefs"","block_context":{"text":"Case Briefs","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/category\/casebriefs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"evidence","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MicrosoftTeams-image-787.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MicrosoftTeams-image-787.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MicrosoftTeams-image-787.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MicrosoftTeams-image-787.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":360040,"url":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2025\/09\/13\/circumstantial-evidence-broken-supreme-court-acquits-two-rape-murder-7-year-old\/","url_meta":{"origin":133991,"position":4},"title":"\u2018Circumstantial evidence chain broken\u2019; 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In the instant case, the prosecution failed to prove motive, the \u2018last seen theory\u2019 stood contradicted, and the scientific evidence was marred by inconsistencies and loopholes. In such circumstances, it was held wholly unsafe to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Briefs"","block_context":{"text":"Case Briefs","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/category\/casebriefs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Acquittal in rape and murder of 7-year-old girl","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Acquittal-in-rape-and-murder-of-7-year-old-girl.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Acquittal-in-rape-and-murder-of-7-year-old-girl.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Acquittal-in-rape-and-murder-of-7-year-old-girl.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Acquittal-in-rape-and-murder-of-7-year-old-girl.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":258739,"url":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2021\/12\/20\/sikk-hc-last-seen-together-theory-inconclusive-in-absence-of-clear-motive-and-beyond-doubt-circumstantial-evidences-court-acquits\/","url_meta":{"origin":133991,"position":5},"title":"Sikk HC | “Last seen together theory- Inconclusive in absence of clear motive and beyond doubt circumstantial evidences”: Court acquits","author":"Editor","date":"December 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Sikkim High Court: Meenakshi Madan Rai J., while acquitting the accused charged under section 302, 392 and 427 of IPC held that \"Despite there being strong suspicion against the appellant with regard to him having a hand in the death of the appellant, suspicion however strong cannot replace certainty. Moral\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Briefs"","block_context":{"text":"Case Briefs","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/category\/casebriefs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}