The Supreme Court emphasized the probative value of the ‘last seen’ theory and the need for a complete causal chain of evidence to establish guilt in cases with only circumstantial evidence.
The court opined that the prosecution’s case, which rested solely on circumstantial evidence, necessitated an unequivocal and coherent sequence of events supported by reliable and robust evidence that could irrefutably link the accused to the crime beyond any reasonable doubt.
Brief Facts of the Case:
The appellant filed the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court challenging the conviction order of the Trial Court, which the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld under Sections 302/364/392/394/201 read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code.
Brief Background of the Case:
Gurmail Singh, a resident of a village near Yamuna Nagar, Haryana, left his village on his tractor one morning in May 2000 to visit his sister and brother-in-law in the nearby village of Dadupur. However, he never returned to his village. Three days later, Harbans Singh, Gurmail's brother, visited the village to inquire about Gurmail’s whereabouts. Upon discovering he was missing, Harbans Singh lodged an FIR in District Yamuna Nagar, stating that his brother had disappeared.
He claimed that a neighbour had seen Gurmail Singh on his tractor with two accused, Mange Ram and Dinesh, who were residents of nearby villages and were known to be vagabonds. Harbans Singh believed these two people kidnapped his brother to rob him of his tractor. The police registered a case under Section 364 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and recovered Gurmail’s body from a canal.
Procedural History:
The Additional Sessions Judge, Jagadhri, Haryana found the appellant and Mange Ram guilty of various offences under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and sentenced them to life imprisonment under Section 302. The two accused appealed to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, but Mange Ram's appeal was abated after his death during the appeal proceedings. The High Court dismissed the appellant’s appeal and upheld the Trial Court’s conviction order.
Observations of the Court:
The evidence of ‘last seen’ is crucial, especially when there is a short interval between the time the accused was ‘last seen’ with the victim and the time of death or discovery of the body. However, even when there is a long gap between the ‘last seen’ and the death or discovery of the body, last-seen evidence can still be valuable. Still, the prosecution must prove that no one else could have accessed the victim during that period. The ‘last seen’ circumstances alone cannot prove guilt, and the prosecution must provide additional evidence to connect the accused to the crime. In this case, the time gap between the ‘last seen’ and the post-mortem indicates that it would be unsafe to base a conviction on the ‘last seen’ theory.
Both the trial court and the High Court misinterpreted Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, in this case. While Section 106 places the burden of disclosing facts on establishing certain circumstances, it does not alter the fact that the prosecution bears the burden of proof in proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, the prosecution failed to establish that the accused accessed the victim during the time gap between the ‘last seen’ and the death.
The case required the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, as there were no direct eyewitnesses to the crime. This put a heavy burden on the prosecution to collect a chain of circumstances pointing to only one conclusion: that the accused committed the crime. Each piece of evidence in the chain had to be strong and reliable.
The decision of the Court:
The Apex Court determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused/appellant had committed the crime. Based on this assessment, the Supreme Court quashed the impugned judgement and order of the High Court and the Trial Court. Consequently, the Court allowed the appeal filed by the appellant.
Case Title: Dinesh Kumar v. State of Haryana
Case No.: Criminal Appeal No. 530 of 2022
Citation: 2023 Latest Caselaw 440 SC
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Kumar
Advocates for Petitioner: Mr. A. Sirajudeen, Sr. Adv. (SCLSC), Mr. Naresh Kumar, AOR, Mr. Keerthik Vasan, Adv.
Advocates for Respondent: Mr. Dinesh Chander Yadav, A.A.G., Mr. A.S. Rishi, Adv., Mr. Ishwar Chand, Adv., Mr. M.K. Bansal, Adv., Dr. Monika Gusain, AOR
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