In Brief
Three men were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment after a weapons recovery led police to claim they had committed the crime. The Supreme Court acquitted them, holding that while the recovery of weapons was admissible evidence under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, the accused's alleged statement that these were the weapons used in the crime was inadmissible (it constitutes a confession barred by Sections 25-26). Moreover, no forensic evidence (blood matching) linked the recovered weapons to the deceased. The Court found the eyewitness evidence unreliable: the only eyewitness could not identify the accused, and other witnesses were chance observers. The High Court wrongly reversed the Trial Court's acquittal without finding it perverse. The appellants were acquitted.
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