{"id":283862,"date":"2023-02-14T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T04:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=283862"},"modified":"2023-02-14T09:36:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T04:06:42","slug":"conviction-on-basis-of-last-seen-theory-not-justified-supreme-court-emancipates-the-accused-for-kidnapping-and-murdering-7-year-old-boy-legal-news-legal-research-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2023\/02\/14\/conviction-on-basis-of-last-seen-theory-not-justified-supreme-court-emancipates-the-accused-for-kidnapping-and-murdering-7-year-old-boy-legal-news-legal-research-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Conviction on the basis of ‘last seen’ theory not justified’; Supreme Court acquits accused in a 7-year-old boy’s kidnapping and murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Supreme Court:<\/b> Exercising their criminal appellate jurisdiction, the division bench of S. Ravindra Bhat*<\/b> and P.S. Narasimha, JJ., set aside the conviction and sentence of the accused and stated that their conviction was solely relied on the ‘last seen’ theory which was not justified.<\/p>\n

In the matter at hand, the accused were convicted under Sections 302<\/a>, 364<\/a> and 201<\/a> of the Penal Code, 1860<\/a> by the Trial Court and their conviction was affirmed by the Uttaranchal High Court.<\/p>\n

A 7-year-old boy, resident of village Akbarpur went missing on 08-10-1999 and was found dead on 10-10-1999 in a sugarcane field in another village Narayanpur. First Information Report (‘FIR’) was registered 42 days later.<\/p>\n

The Court noted that the concurrent conviction of the accused were solely based on the testimonies of the two witnesses who deposed to see the boy with the accused before he was found dead. The conviction thus, rested upon the ‘last seen’ theory, i.e., the boy was last seen in the company of the first two accused.<\/p>\n

It was emphasised by the Bench that the ‘last seen’ theory had limited application, where the time lag between the time the boy was seen last with the accused, and the time of murder, was narrow. An accused should not be convicted only on the basis of the ‘last seen’ circumstance.<\/p>\n

The Court stated that it was unusual that the family of the boy and accused allegedly had previous enmity and despite having heard the boy cry when he was seen in the company of the accused early in the morning, away from his house-given that he was only 7 years old, the witnesses did not bother to intercede. This was more so since the witnesses were admittedly relatives.<\/p>\n

The Bench was appalled to see that the statement of one of the witnesses upon whom the conviction rested upon was recorded after more than two months after the beginning of investigation. Even the application under Section 156(3)<\/a> of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973<\/a> did not state that the witnesses had sighted the boy on or before the unfateful day with the accused. The Court stated that the witnesses testimony was unreliable since they did not corroborate with the circumstances of the case.<\/p>\n

The Bench was further of the view that the basic principle of criminal jurisprudence is that in circumstantial evidence cases, the prosecution is obliged to prove each circumstance, as well the as the links between all circumstances, beyond reasonable doubt. Such 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 the same should unerringly point towards the guilt of the accused. The circumstantial evidence, in order to sustain conviction, must be complete and incapable of any other hypothesis than that of the guilt of the accused, and such evidence should not only be consistent with the guilt of the accused but should be inconsistent with his innocence.<\/p>\n

The Bench opined that the testimonies of the witnesses who deposed to seeing the boy with the accused were seriously flawed and inconsistent, therefore, it couldn’t be said that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

Further, the Supreme Court stated that there was no evidence, oral or any material object which connected the accused with the crime. The serious inconsistencies in the depositions of the witnesses, as well as the fact that the FIR was lodged after 42 days after the incident, the sole reliance on the ‘last seen’ circumstance to convict the accused was not justified.<\/p>\n

Therefore, held that the conviction and sentence of the accused could not be sustained, and the impugned judgment was thus, set aside.<\/p>\n

[Jabir v. State of Uttarakhand, 2023 SCC OnLine SC 32<\/a>, decided on 17-01-2023<\/span>]<\/p>\n

Judgment Authored by: Justice S.R. Bhat<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Advocates who appeared in this case:<\/p>\n

For Accused- Advocate on Record Vikrant Singh Bais, Advocate Yogesh Tiwari, Advocate Dushyant Singh Chauhan, Advocate Neema;<\/p>\n

For Respondent- Advocate on Record Sudarshan Singh Rawat, Advocate Vikas Negi, Advocate Sunny Sachin Rawat.<\/p>\n\n

*Simran Singh, Editorial Assistant summated the data.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court was of the view that the basic principle of criminal jurisprudence is that in circumstantial evidence cases, the prosecution is obliged to prove each circumstance, as well the as the links between all circumstances, beyond reasonable doubt. Such 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 the same should unerringly point towards the guilt of the accused.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67011,"featured_media":283865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[53619,30523,45189,2948,3024,5363,25454],"class_list":["post-283862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-casebriefs","category-supremecourt","tag-destruction-of-evidence","tag-kidnap","tag-last-seen-theory","tag-murder","tag-post-mortem","tag-supreme-court","tag-testimonies"],"yoast_head":"\n‘Conviction on the basis of ‘last seen’ theory not justified’; Supreme Court acquits accused in a 7-year-old boy's kidnapping and murder case | SCC Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Exercising their criminal appellate jurisdiction, the division bench of S. 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SC acquits three murder convicts","author":"Editor","date":"August 9, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court said that the evidence regarding the last seen theory was totally unreliable and the evidence regarding the Call Detail Records also did not inspire any confidence.","rel":"","context":"In "Case Briefs"","block_context":{"text":"Case Briefs","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/category\/casebriefs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sc acquits murder convicts","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/sc-acquits-murder-convicts.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/sc-acquits-murder-convicts.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/sc-acquits-murder-convicts.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/sc-acquits-murder-convicts.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":295300,"url":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2023\/06\/23\/circumstantial-evidence-links-in-a-chain-must-be-complete-in-all-aspects-supreme-court\/","url_meta":{"origin":283862,"position":3},"title":"Chain of Circumstantial evidence must be complete in all aspects to indicate guilt of accused: Supreme Court","author":"Ridhi","date":"June 23, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court was of the view that the High Court ought to have interfered with the conviction when it found one of the links in circumstantial evidence missing and not proved, respecting the settled law in this regard.","rel":"","context":"In "Case Briefs"","block_context":{"text":"Case Briefs","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/category\/casebriefs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"circumstantial evidence links in a chain","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/circumstantial-evidence-links-in-a-chain.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/circumstantial-evidence-links-in-a-chain.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/circumstantial-evidence-links-in-a-chain.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/circumstantial-evidence-links-in-a-chain.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":287257,"url":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2023\/03\/20\/circumstantial-evidence-to-be-accompanied-with-motive-and-corroborating-evidence-supreme-court-acquits-men-accused-of-murder-legal-news-legal-research-updates\/","url_meta":{"origin":283862,"position":4},"title":"\u2018Circumstantial evidence to be accompanied with motive and corroborating evidence\u2019; 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":204621,"url":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2018\/11\/01\/section-313-crpc-can-well-be-considered-as-a-constitutional-right-under-article-21-invocation-of-last-seen-theory-sans-facts-and-evidence-does-not-shift-onus-on-accused-sc\/","url_meta":{"origin":283862,"position":5},"title":"Section 313 CrPC can well be considered as a constitutional right under Article 21; invocation of last seen theory sans facts and evidence does not shift onus on accused: SC","author":"Bhumika Indulia","date":"November 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Supreme Court:\u00a0A Bench comprising of Rohinton F. Nariman and Navin Sinha, JJ. allowed criminal appeal filed against the judgment of Gauhati High Court whereby trial court's decision convicting the appellant under Section 302 IPC was upheld. The appellant was accused of murdering her husband. 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