In Brief
Three accused were convicted of murdering Hoshiyar Singh under IPC Section 302 read with Section 34, based on circumstantial evidence including witness identification and Call Detail Records. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and acquitted the accused. The Court held that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of circumstances beyond reasonable doubt. The witness identification was unreliable because the accused had been shown to witnesses in the police station before court identification, compromising the Test Identification Parade. Call Detail Records were inconclusive as the SIM was not registered to the accused and they allegedly contacted each other while at the same location. The 'last seen' evidence was unreliable. The Court reaffirmed that circumstantial evidence must 'must be proved' rather than merely 'may be proved', and must exclude every other hypothesis of innocence.
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